AYERSVILLE-It was the start of the second season on Wednesday night as 12 seeded Paulding did battle with 10 seed Spencerville. The home team Bearcats got off to a sizzling start on offense to pick up the 64-33 victory.
“We feel good,” said Spencerville head coach Greg Ekis. “I think anytime you can win a tournament game and we are very pleased with that and it’s not easy things to do and we talked about that in the locker room after the game.”
Spencerville got off to great start on the offensive end as it put the Panthers on the ropes early. There was only one lead change in the contest and that was on a basket by Clara Goecke. Goecke was the spark plug for the Bearcats as she tallied 10 points in the quarter to give them a 23-10 advantage.
“When Clara gets going and when she attacks the basket and it’s hard to guard her,” said Ekis. “She did a good job finishing with both hands and I think she had two or three nice layups with her left hand that we were happy with.”
The offense came in waves in the first half as four different players scored at least six points in the opening half. A basket by Eilan Muniz extended the lead to 25-10 and a pair of free throws from Gabi Croft made it 27-10. Paulding answered with baskets by Carlea Kuckuck and Elli Barton to cut the lead to 27-14.
It was raining threes for the Bearcats the rest of the quarter as Heidi Keller buried a pair of them and one by Kirsten Wurst and Muniz stretched the lead to 41-18.
Spencerville kept their foot on the gas pedal in the third quarter as the running clock became imminent. Balanced scoring from Wurst, Goecke and Croft kept the lead above thirty to 61-28 after three quarters.
It was a low scoring final quarter as Paulding outscored Spencerville 5-3. Brooklyn Bakle and Brooklyn Schlatter tallied points for the Panthers. Goecke knocked down a three pointer as the lone quarter points for the Bearcats.
Paulding concludes their season at 2-21.
Spencerville improves to 12-11 on the season and will face top seeded Ottawa Glandorf in the sectional championship game on Saturday at 1pm back at Ayersville high school.
“Ottawa-Glandorf is a great team and Troy is a great coach,” concluded Ekis. “They have a lot of great athletes and a lot of great size so there are some things that we are going to have to do to prepare for them and we will have to prepare for 32 minutes not just for one or two quarters and we will have to prepare because they are physical and big.”
Paulding 10 – 10 – 8 – 5 – 33
Spencerville 23 – 20 – 18 – 3 – 64
Paulding (33)
Addison Pease (15) Brooklyn Barkle (5) Makayla Suffel (5) Brooklyn Schlatter (4) Carlea Kuckuck (2) Elli Barton (2)
Spencerville (64)
Clara Goecke (20) Gabi Croft (13) Kirsten Wurst (12) Heidi Keller (11) Eilan Muniz (6) Sydney Lemar (2)
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