SPENCERVILLE- It will be just 70 days ago that the LCC Thunderbirds came into the walk-in closet and stole a win from the Spencerville Bearcats 66-57. However, 70 days later at Bob Seggerson court at LCC, the Bearcats will have a chance to respond.
“I’m definitely excited that we got another shot at those guys,” said Spencerville senior Owen Sensabaugh on the Mike, Chase, and Nate 5.0 show on Sunday night. “The first time around, we led the whole game and we should have won but we fell apart in the end and didn’t execute well late in the game and I’m ready for round 2 because the first one didn’t go the way we wanted it to.”
One of the takeaways in that game for the Bearcats (15-7) back on December 19th and for the elder Sensabaugh brother was scoring his 1000th career point in the contest. Since then the senior has averaged 12.5 points per game to go along with 3.8 rebounds and 3.2 assists per game.
“Owen coming back has given us back our depth,” said Spencerville head coach Kevin Sensabaugh. “His experience and defensive IQ has made us better.”
For Spencerville if they want to pull a minor upset on Friday, one of the keys will be slowing down NWC player of the year and 1st team all district player of the year in Jordan Priddy.
“Priddy is really good,” commented Sensabaugh. “We aren’t going to stop him, we just have to slow him down so he doesn’t explode like he did the last time.”
“Playing against good players is probably one of my favorite things,” said Junior Will Sensabaugh on the Mike, Chase,and Nate 5.0 show on Sunday night. “Personally I like going against Priddy because he can go get a bucket at any time but I also think he’s a really good defender too and above everything else he doesn’t talk trash and keeps it all to himself for the most part and he’s just straight competitive.”
For LCC, the Thunderbirds (12-9) played one of the toughest schedules in division 6 with the likes of Maumee Valley Country Day, Toledo St. Francis De Sales, Bishop Ready, Shawnee, Delphos St. John’s, Wapakoneta, and Botkins. LCC and Spencerville were the only two teams to take the Bluejays to overtime this season with St.John’s beating the Bearcats by 2 and beating LCC by 4.
However, come Friday night the LCC bench will look a little bit different as head coach Sean Powell was ejected in their regular season finale against Botkins on Saturday and per OHSAA rules will serve a two game suspension so he will have to be out on Friday and should they advance to next week’s District semifinal game, Powell will have to miss that game as well.
The Bearcats adjusted their style of play in mid-Janurary and it has allowed them to get the rest of their players going in Grady Smith, Jude Stemen, Gavin Comer, Kolton Grigsby, and Landon Kahle.
“When Owen went out we had to be a little more deliberate,” added Sensabaugh. “We started to make an effort to get Grady the ball more. He has played really well.”
Smith has averaged 9.3 points per game along with 3.7 rebounds per game. Stemen is fresh off a 21 point outing against Jefferson and has averaged 9.8 points per game and 2 rebounds per game. Gavin Comer has averaged 3.5 points per game to go along with 3.7 rebounds per game while other big man Kolton Grigsby has averaged 4.2 points per game with 4.4 rebounds per game. Landon Kahle has averaged 2.3 points per game and 2.0 per game and is one of the key glue guys on this Bearcat squad.
“Grady and Jude are crucial to our success,” added Sensabaugh. “If those guys can make shots it makes us a lot more dangerous and difficult to guard.”
It will be a big crowd come Friday night and it’s something that this Bearcat team is looking forward to.
The elder Sensabaugh gave his keys to victory against the Thunderbirds on Friday night.
“Keys to victory in every tournament game are going to be: 1. Take care of the ball 2. Rebound the basketball 3. Execute your stuff.” Concluded Sensabaugh.
If you can’t make it to the game tune in to Zsports 3 as Nate Stidham and Shane Falke have all the action with the pregame show beginning at 5:45 followed by tip-off at 6pm.
Photo credit goes to June Orr.
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