| Otsego girls hold off Van Buren at sectionals (2-23-12) |
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| Written by Chayse Held Sentinel Sports Writer | ||
| Thursday, 23 February 2012 00:43 | ||
But in the end the Knights stepped up when it mattered most to keep their season alive. Otsego scored the game’s final seven points, pulling out a 59-53 win in the opening round of the Division III sectional tournament at Bowling Green High School. PHOTO GALLERY “Once again our girls battled,” Otsego coach Scott Bernthisel said. “We had girls that stepped up and made plays at the end. That’s what the difference was.” Trailing 53-52 late in the fourth quarter, sophomore Lindsey Donald hit a 3-pointer with 1:54 remaining to give Otsego the lead back for good. Donald then made a runner just outside of the lane to push the Knights’ lead to 57-53 with 1:02 left and Otsego would add two free throws to close out the win. “Towards the end we made plays and they couldn’t pull through,” Donald said. “I was just thinking we had to win to move on.” Donald, who had played junior varsity for much of the season, scored all five of her points in the final two minutes of the game. “Lindsey had a great week of practicing up with the varsity team. She had a lot of JV minutes this year and really had a good attitude all week in practice,” Bernthisel said. “I was like, ‘We need to play her.’ And she didn’t disappoint. At the end she stepped up and made plays.” Before Donald’s heroics, it was Otsego’s senior duo of Hannah Greulich and Kylee Bernthisel who did the most damage for the Knights. Greulich finished with a team-high 19 points and 12 rebounds, and Kylee Bernthisel added 11 points, eight boards and three steals. Senior Micaela Murphy added nine points for Otsego. “It means a lot to the team, especially the seniors. We all just want to go out and play hard and we want to get as far as we can go in the tournament,” Greulich said. “We knew we just needed to come out and play our game.” Otsego had to overcome a size disadvantage against Van Buren, which looked much better than a team with just three wins coming into the game. The Black Knights (3-18) play in the difficult Blanchard Valley Conference, which features three teams — Liberty-Benton, Arlington and Arcadia — that were ranked in the top 10 of their respective final state polls. “If you look at their schedule, they were in a lot of games. They didn’t get blown out very often. They scored a lot of points,” coach Bernthisel said of Van Buren. “So we knew it would be a tough battle coming in. They’re playing Liberty-Benton twice, Arcadia twice, Arlington twice; right there’s three state-ranked teams.” Throw in the Black Knights’ junior Kristen Tropf’s incredible shooting night, and the chance for an upset was ripe. Tropf made eight 3-pointers in the game and finished with a game-high 26 points. However, Tropf did not score after hitting her final triple of the game that gave Van Buren a 46-44 lead with 6:08 left in the fourth quarter, after coach Bernthisel had switched to a box-and-one defense with Otsego’s Murphy guarding Tropf. “I didn’t realize she had 26 points. One of my assistants said that’s 26, and I looked at the scoreboard and decided we had to go box-and-1 on her,” coach Bernthisel said. “That’s my bad for not going to that sooner. “We hadn’t seen her shoot that well all year. And many games they didn’t make any three’s all game in many of their box scores. And then she hit the one from like 35 feet and it’s like, ‘I guess we better do something different.’” With the win Otsego (12-9) advanced to Saturday’s sectional final against top-seed Liberty-Benton, which was ranked seventh in the final state poll. The game will be the first of two sectional finals Saturday at BGHS and is scheduled to start at 6:15 p.m. “We’ll prepare just like we do any team ... We’ve got a pretty good idea of what Liberty-Benton will do. We’ll prepare the best and you never know,” coach Bernthisel said. “I know our players will bring their ‘A’ game and we’ll see what happens.” |
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| Last Updated on Thursday, 23 February 2012 10:38 |
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