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DHS assures winning year; Bulldogs go on the road at top St. Marys

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By BRUCE HEFFLINGER

hefflinger@crescent-news.com

ST. MARYS -- Tied up with less than two minutes to go against a one-win team was hardly what Defiance head coach Kirk Lehman and his team wanted.

But the Bulldogs scored the game's final seven points to beat St. Marys 48-41, assuring DHS of its second consecutive winning season.

"The thing I'm proudest of is we were tied up, on the road on a Monday night and we made big plays when we needed to," said Lehman, whose team is now 11-5 overall and 4-2 in the WBL. "I can't complain about our guys. They had enough to finish strong on the road against a team with one win. With that kind of pressure a lot of teams would fold."

Defiance led 38-30 with 4:38 to play ater nice jump-stop move in the lane by Ron Beverly. But the Roughriders, which entered the contest hitting just 20 percent from 3-point range, connected on three consecutive 3-balls, the last two by Adam Lininger, to deadlock the score at 39 with 2:51 left.

"It didn't look like they'd miss," Lehman said of St. Marys, which was 7-of-11 on 3-point attempts before missing its last three attempts in the final minute of the game. "We made some errors on switches, but a couple times they were stepping back and knocking 3s in."

An elbow jumper by Steve Hammersmith gave the Bulldogs the lead back, but Lininger was good on a pair of free throws to even the score with 1:52 remaining.

"One of our strengths is our big guys can shoot the 15-foot jumper," Lehman noted. "Hammer has a great stroke and he didn't hesitate which was good to see."

Alex Keel, who had been stymied much of the game by the St. Marys' 2-3 zone defense, gave DHS the lead for good at 43-41 with a strong drive to the hoop at the 1:34 mark.

After Lininger missed a trey from the left baseline, Taylor Keel drove to the foul line where he found Hammersmith with a nice bounce pass for a layup, giving the Bulldogs a four-point lead with 40 seconds to play.

"We had defensive breakdowns, plain and simple," said St. Marys coach Paul Sadler. "We'd tied the game and had been comfortable stopping Keel. He had seven points at that point and we knew what he was going to do - use his left hand and go to the basket. But we did not jump to his left hand like we did earlier.

"Then we're trying to foul the guy we wanted and we didn't. We got lax and they got a layup. I'm just horribly disappointed. We put ourselves in position to win at the end and then we had metal errors on defense. I understand if your not hitting shots on offense, that's going to happen, but you have got to have commitment to not give up easy points.

"We shot ourselves back into the game and that's a credit to the kids, but you've got to win with defense. In tie games that's where you're going to win or lose and we couldn't get the stops."

Defiance scored points on each of its last five possessions of the game, something Lehman was happy to see.

"I thought our guys, each and every one, took great care of the basketball," pointed out Lehman, whose team had just one turnover in the fourth quarter and six for the game. "The big thing there is we had none down the two-minute stretch and that's tough to do in a close basketball game."

Hammersmith had all six of his points in the final eight minutes of play.

"I got a nice crisp pass from Nofs (Alex Nofziger) on the first basket and another from TK (Taylor Keel)," Hammersmith related. "I just stepped up with confidence and shot it, but the crisp passes helped."

Trailing 18-17 at half, DHS took control in the third quarter behind some strong rebounding. Eric Stapleton and Alex Keel each scored points off of offensive boards, putting the Bulldogs on top, 23-20. Taylor Keel then went coast-to-coast after hitting the defensive glass and Nofziger did the same moments later for a 27-20 advantage.

"I thought tonight may have been our best effort on the offensive boards this season," noted Lehman of his team, which had 10 offensive rebounds, eight in the second half.

Defiance took its biggest lead of the game at 31-22 on a Nofziger jumper from the wing but a Lininger 3-ball helped pull St. Marys within 31-26 after three quarters.

A Nofziger steal, his fifth of the game, opened the final quarter and Hammersmith began the fourth-quarter scoring with a layup on a pass from Alex Keel, setting the stage for the finish.

"We saw on film they were better than their record shows," Nofziger said of the Roughriders. "They played tough and made shots, but we kept our composure and finished them off."

Still, tied late was not something the Bulldogs wanted.

"We had to take a deep breath," said Nofziger, who led DHS in scoring with 14. "We were not communicating enough on defense. Open 3s will kill you every time."

But the Bulldogs had enough to overcome it.

"There were a lot of mental hurdles we had to get through," Lehman concluded. "These kids are 16, 17 and 18 and people say they should be ready, but they're human. We're playing a team that's 1-13 on a night we normally don't play and there's not a great crowd. You've got to generate your own enthusiasm and I thought we did."

St. Marys did claim the junior varsity contest 45-37, dropping DHS to 8-8. Doug Herrett scored 12 for the Bulldogs, which are back in action Friday at Elida and Saturday at Rossford.

BOX SCORE

DEFIANCE (48) - T. Keel 2; Nofziger 14; A. Keel 10; Gutman 4; Stapleton 4; Hammersmith 6; Kime 0; Beverly 6; Parsons 0. Totals 19-42 9-13 48.

ST. MARYS (41) - Kinkley 7; Roberts 0; Roop 8; Menker 3; Taylor 5; Lininger 13; Fitzgerald 5; Anderson 0; Bubp 0. Totals 14-27 6-10 41.

Three-point goals: Defiance - Nofziger. St. Marys - Lininger 3, Roop 2, Kinkley, Taylor. Rebounds: Defiance 23 (A. Keel 5), St. Marys 17 (Kinkley 5). Turnovers: Defiance 6, St. Marys 14.

Defiance 8 9 14 17 - 48

St. Marys 9 9 8 15 - 41

Reserves: St. Marys, 45-37.