Perrysburg’s girls basketball team, with all it has done this season, still lacked just one thing — a
meaningful nonleague win.
That is, until Saturday night.
Sarah Baer exploded for 21 points as the seventh-ranked Yellow Jackets put together a gutsy performance,
beating Lima Bath 48-38 in the Stroh Center.
Perrysburg, which plays in Division I, is 17-2 overall.
Bath, ranked eighth in Division II, is also 17-2.
After three straight fourth-quarter turnovers led to Bath baskets, Perrysburg clung to a 39-38 lead with
2:48 to play.
Less than a minute later, Baer forced a steal, eventually leading to a 3-pointer from the right wing by
senior Abby Sattler, giving the ’Jackets a 42-38 edge.
Perrysburg followed to go 6-of-7 from the free-throw line in the final 41.5 seconds, sealing the
much-needed win.
“We had some people that gutted it out, who were fatigued a little bit there,” Perrysburg coach Todd Sims
said.
“What I like about our team is that we fight. We fought like crazy. Seniors stepped up.”
Allex Brown added 11 points for Perrysburg, as she and Baer each grabbed 10 rebounds.
Baer was almost unstoppable inside eight feet where the 6-foot-1 center scored almost all of her points.

She hit her first seven shots from the floor and finished 9-of-11, playing in front of her future head
coach, Jennifer Roos of Bowling Green State University.
“It’s a pretty great feeling. … Last time (the BG coaches) saw me play, I had a pretty bad game, so I
wanted to make up for it,” Baer said with a smile. “I proved myself this game.”
Perrysburg jumped out to a 16-2 lead in the first quarter before the Wildkittens’ press defense began
wreaking havoc.
Thanks in part to Perrysburg turnovers, Bath cut the lead to 20-8 by the end of the opening quarter.
But the Bath defense really proved its worth in the second.
Forcing six turnovers, Bath held Perrysburg to four points in the second quarter, and after Baer went to
the bench with her second foul, the Wildkittens closed in.
Bath, which predominately relies on the 3-pointer, hit three of its four triples in the final 3:25 of the
first half, cutting Perrysburg’s lead to 24-21 at the break.
“The thing that they do that’s a little different than what most teams do is they press on missed shots,”
Sims said. “People don’t normally have what you consider press breaks for missed shots. At times we, in
the first half, … for a good eight or 10 minutes stretch we did pretty well with it. We got layups and
some open shots.
“At the end of the second quarter we struggled with (the press) again,” he said. “Fatigue got to us a
little bit.”
Bath tied the game at 26-26 early in the third quarter, but Perrysburg never allowed the Wildkittens to
take a lead.
Bath finished 4-of-25 from beyond the arc.
“We talked before the game that they were going to make runs and we just said don’t flinch,” Sims said.
“We say that all the time. Teams are going to make shots, but you can’t look down and make it look like
they’re getting to you. … You just play.
“What teams like Lima do, is when they can make a couple threes, then everybody is pressing and they’re
stealing and the crowd is into it,” he said. “They hit a couple in a row in the second quarter, but they
didn’t hit big groups of them where they really got going.”
Making matters more difficult for Perrysburg is it was without starter Lindy DeLong. The junior guard had
a previous soccer commitment before the game with Bath was scheduled.
“When you have starter who is not here, confidence is huge,” Sims said.
“(The win) definitely boosted our confidence because Lindy wasn’t here,” Baer said. “But then everyone
did their job and filled in that space, and we pulled through at the very end.”
PERRYSBURG 48, LIMA BATH 38
LIMA BATH
Smith, 2-0—4; Brandon, 0-2—2; Hollar, 0-0—0; VanDyne, 3-3-0—15; Manley, 0-1—1; E. Dackin, 0-0—0; M.
Dackin, 1-1-4—9; Best, 3-1—7. TOTALS: 9-4-8—38.
PERRYSBURG
Sattler, 1-1-2—7; Hunter, 1-0—2; Moore, 0-0—0; Witt, 0-1-0—3; S. Baer, 9-3—21; Piezer, 2-0—4; Brown,
3-5—11. TOTALS: 16-2-10—48.
BATH 8 13 7 10 —38
PERRYSBURG 20 4 7 17 —48
Junior varsity: no game played.