MARIA STEIN-The Spencerville Bearcats knew that they had their hands full on Saturday night when they visited the state ranked Marion Local Flyers. The Flyers made plays down the stretch to pull away for the 70-59 victory.
“We talked to the guys that we are going to dissect this game on Monday,” said Spencerville head coach Kevin Sensabaugh. “We are going to find out what we did poorly and look at what we did well and try to fix things for next week.”
It was a game of runs in the opening quarter as both teams were able to find offensive success. Spencerville started the quarter on a 7-0 run on baskets by Dylan Smith and Carter Sudhoff followed by a three pointer from Dylan Cook.
Marion Local responded with back to back three pointer by Jadyn Mescher to tie the game at seven but five points from Blake Sommers gave the visitors a 12-11 advantage.
The low scoring affair continued in the second quarter as both traded fouls in the quarter which led to many opportunities from the free throw line. Spencerville grew their lead to 17-13 before Jack Knapke got the hosts rolling with seven points in the quarter to regain the lead for Marion Local.
Both teams duked it out in the third quarter as the lead never crossed double digits. Marion Local grew their lead to 32-27 before baskets by Smith and Josh Henline trimmed the lead to 32-31.
Smith was able to tie the game at 33 with a basket and a shot by Henline gave them a 35-33 advantage. A three pointer by Luke Pohlman gave the hosts a lead back that never changed the rest of the game.
The Bearcats continued to fight in the final quarter as a pair of free throws by Carder Orr cut the lead to 47-44 and a basket by Smith cut it to 49-46. The visitors got within three one more time in the quarter but the Flyers didn’t allow Spencerville to get much closer as they grew the lead to double digits in the final minutes to close out the victory.
“We just couldn’t get stops down the stretch,” Sensabaugh explained. “Knapke is just such a load in the post and it seemed like Carter Sudhoff just didn’t have a lot of room to work with and without him on the floor made it tough for us to guard.”
Spencerville drops to 16-2 on the season and will visit NWC foe Ada on Friday. The Bearcats can have a chance to at least the NWC crown with a victory.
“We want to make sure we finish the regular season the right way,” Sensabaugh concluded. “We have two league games left that we really want to win and our guys have played our butts off all year and we don’t want this loss to lead to negative things and we are going to learn from this so come tournament time we have improved ourselves so we can make a tournament run.”
Spencerville 12 – 13 – 17 – 17 – 59
Marion Local 11 – 17 – 19 – 23 – 70
Spencerville (59)
Josh Henline (16) Dylan Smith (14) Carder Orr (9) Blake Sommers (7) Dylan Cook (5) Evan Osting (4) Owen Sensabaugh (2) Carter Sudhoff (2)
Marion Local (70)
Jack Knapke (23) Jadyn Mescher (19) Luke Pohlman (11) Austin Niekamp (8) Tate Hess (6) Brandon Eyink (2) Mitchell Ranly (1)
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