TONTOGANY – Trailing by five with 44 seconds to play, a win looked to be out of question for Otsego
Tuesday night.
But eight consecutive points in the final 33 seconds, sparked by a 3-point basket from Kylee Bernthisel,
gave the Knights a 55-52 win over Elmwood in an otherwise ugly Northern Buckeye Conference match up.
PHOTO
GALLERY
"As
Kylee shot that one I said to my (assistant) coach, ‘If this goes in, we’ve got a chance,’" said
Otsego head coach Scott Bernthisel.
The triple seemingly ignited a flame under the Knights, who then came away with a steal almost
instantaneously after the in-bounds pass by Elmwood.
On the ensuing possession, coach Bernthisel used a timeout to put together a play that was designed for
Jenni Selders, who hadn’t played at all in the second half.
With the score 52-50 in favor of Elmwood, Selders drove to the basket and was fouled hard, but the
hometown roll and a free throw gave Otsego a 53-52 lead with 15.7 seconds left.
"That play was designed for her to penetrate and kick," Scott Bernthisel said. "But that’s
playing basketball. If the kick is not there, then put it in the hole and she did a nice job."
After committing another turnover, the Royals were forced to foul, and Jenna Strain all but ended the
game by knocking down her two free throws with 3.1 seconds remaining.
"(Kylee Bernthisel) hit a big shot, but we still had the lead. But then we had a couple
turnovers," Elmwood head coach Doug Reynolds said. "You can’t do it. You cannot have the
turnovers in a game like that to knock off the league-leaders."
Otsego still sits atop the NBC standings at 7-3 overall and 5-1 in the conference, while Elmwood is 5-4,
2-4.
"If we get one more basket, that game is over," Reynolds said. "But we had a couple of
turnovers and that’s the bottom line."
Turnovers were a common theme for both teams as Otsego had 30 turnovers, while Elmwood committed 23.
The Knights bolted out to an 11-3 start, that was keyed by Hannah Greulich, who scored all seven of her
points in the 2:21 stretch.
Otsego held a 19-9 advantage after the opening eight minutes, but Elmwood out-scored the Knights 16-3 to
take a 25-22 lead at the break.
Otsego went 1-of-11 from the floor in the second quarter, and began to culminate the bulk of its mostly
unforced turnovers.
"(Elmwood) made some adjustments and we didn’t just battle and play basketball at that point,"
Scott Bernthisel said.
"I think we started lacking and thinking we had it. But we came right back," Strain said.
"After halftime we had a good talk and just came back."
Otsego trailed by as many as seven points with 5:05 left in the third quarter, but the Knights put
together a 9-2 scoring run to tie the score at 33, and eventually the two teams went into the fourth
tied at 35.
"The name of the game was we battled," Scott Bernthisel said. "We gave ourselves a shot at
the end. In this league this year it looks like you’re going to have to control your destiny at home
definitely."
The Knights had three players hit double-figures.
Strain led with a team-high 13 points and 10 rebounds, while Kylee Bernthisel had 11 points and Morgan
McCullough added 10.
For Elmwood, Sierra Beckford scored a game-high 19 points, and Brittany Gross had 12.
"We’re going to be all right," Reynolds said. "They’re fighting hard and we’re going to
take the positives away from this game, but we’ve got to clean up the turnovers."
Otsego won the junior varsity game 38-35. Maddie Asmus led the Knights with nine points. Courtney Emmitt
led paced Elmwood with 14.