By BRIAN SMITH
Sports Editor

OTTAWA — The Ottawa-Glandorf Titans competed in their 1,000th game as a program on Tuesday night in a blowout win over Wapakoneta.

In its 1,001st game on Friday night, the Titan program put together its best defensive performance statistically since three rural Putnam County league schools were consolidated to form Ottawa-Glandorf High School back in 1964.

O-G’s Supreme Court hadn’t ever seen a rebuttal quite this thorough.

Division III’s fifth-ranked Titans set two school records with a defensive performance that held the St. Marys Roughriders to 3-of-34 shooting and 10  points less than the program’s previous best in a 64-14 Western Buckeye League win on Friday night at Hermiller Gymnasium in Ottawa.

“Obviously, we played great defense,” O-G head coach Josh Leslie said. “That’s what this program is about. It’s been that way long before I ever got here. That’s what it’s built on. I didn’t think we started the game very well, so we just put more kids out there. If you want to play on this team, you have to perform.”

The 8.8 percent shooting by the Riders was the lowest amount a Titan team had held an opposing offense. Paulding shot 21 percent against the Titans in a game during the 1982 season.

The lowest score given up prior to Friday night by O-G was 24 points, both of which have happened this decade. In 2004, Bath tallied 24 and in 2000 Archbold scored 24.

“It was embarrassing,” St. Marys head coach Paul Sadler said. “O-G is a tough team to match up with, but I was disappointed in the way our kids reacted to when things went badly. If we can’t hold our emotions in check, we don’t deserve to be in these games.”

St. Marys turned the ball over 34 times in the face of  13 Titans who all played baseline-to-baseline pressure man-to-man defense the entire game.

The defending Division III state champion Titans knocked down eight 3-pointers after a tough start from the field, eventually getting 12 players into the scorebook.

St. Marys also broke a school record for fewest amount of points in a game. The Riders scored 22 points against Marion Local during the 1983-84 season.

Leslie is now 3-1 as head coach against his former team.  Friday night’s win was his first win at home over St. Marys as the O-G head coach. The Riders picked off the Titans two years ago at Hermiller Gymnasium.

After slipping twice  last weekend to Elida and Lima Senior and losing its No. 1-ranking in the state , the Titans took their frustrations out on Wapakoneta and St. Marys this week to the tune of a 144-44 scoring differential.

O-G is 10-2, 4-1 in the WBL.

“Hopefully these two games allowed us to refocus ourselves after we played two disappointing games last weekend,” Leslie said.

Taylor Kuhlman was the lone double-figure scorer in the game, tallying 11 points for the Titans.

Jake Taylor paced the Roughriders with four points.

O-G shot 21-for-58 from the field for 36 percent while adding 11 offensive rebounds.

St. Marys hosts Delphos St. John’s tonight at 6:30 p.m. at McBroom Gymnasium, with a 1-10 record, 1-3 in the WBL.
The Blue Jays are 9-3 on the season after being upended by Versailles on Friday night, 52-45. The Blue Jays were ranked fourth in the state in the Div. IV Associated Press poll that was released on Monday.

The Blue Jays feature the big scoring duo of Cameron Hermiller (16 ppg) and Scott Recker (12 ppg).