Shrout leads Preble Shawnee into regional final
Arrows to play Versailles for shot at state Saturday.
KETTERING — Mason Shrout’s bucket list of accomplishments grew Wednesday. Now he and his Preble Shawnee teammates have a more cherished item to check off.
A trip to the Division III state semifinals at UD Arena.
The Arrows gave themselves the opportunity with a 57-48 grind-it-out victory over Tri-Village in the region semifinals. They will play for a trip to state at 7 p.m. Saturday against Versailles (1511) back at Trent Arena. Last year the Arrows lost to Canal Winchester Harvest Prep in the region final.
“They want this to end at UD Arena,” Arrows coach Jake Turner said.
To keep the dream alive, the Arrows (23-3) had to ignore two distractions. And they needed a big bucket from Shrout to open their lead in the fourth quarter and finally put Tri-Village away.
Last Thursday the Arrows lost starting guard and second-leading scorer Isaac Blankenship for the season to a freak-accident leg injury. On Wednesday, Shrout learned that he is a finalist for Ohio’s Mr. Basketball award. Shrout’s dad woke him from a nap after school to tell him.
“It’s definitely something I had on my bucket list wanting to be a finalist for that,” Shrout said. “But today was about our team. Today was about coming in here and handling business.”
Turner had the same attitude.
“I gave him a little pat on the back before we left, and I said, ‘Congrats. We’ll talk later about it,’” Turner said. “He deserves everything he gets.”
To advance the Arrows had to get the better of the defensive strategies. Tri-Village (25-2) played a diamondand-one on Shrout with Tanner Printz doing the dirty work. The Arrows inserted Case Roell into the starting lineup for Blankenship to face guard Trey Sagester, the Patriots’ leading scorer who scored 28 points in the district final. Roell held Sagester to 12 points on 11 shots.
Printz kept Shrout from scoring for most of the game, but as Shrout always does he found ways to impact the game on defense and with seven rebounds and five assists. He scored 11 of his 19 points in the second half, made five of the eight shots he was able get and made all seven of his freethrow attempts. Shrout’s teammates, of course, picked up the scoring slack. Logan Hawley scored 12 inside and Brody Morton scored 11.
If Shrout’s bucket list includes make an impossible shot to help his team win a regional semifinal, he can check that one off, too.
Leading 41-39, Shrout got a rare opening off a screen, and it was time to shoot a long three. Braden Keating, now guarding Shrout because Printz had four fouls, fought through the screen and bumped Shrout for a foul.
Shrout, of course, sought the contact, let the shot go while turning sideways, and it went in with 2:27 left. He turned to the Shawnee fans, raised his arms and cheered them on. He added the free throw for a four-point play, a 45-39 lead and enough cushion to make free throws stand up to two more Keating 3-pointers.
“God’s grace just giving me the ability to be able to hit that shot,” Shrout said. “I don’t even think I was looking at the rim. I think I was looking for the contact, and I got the contact, threw it up there, prayed and it went in. That was a big separator for us.”
Versailles 68, Cin. Mariemont 43
Carson Heitkamp sees basketball as an uncomplicated game.
“Just get it inside,” he said. “They’re going to foul us. Just score where it’s the easiest.”
And Versailles did that in bunches Wednesday night. Heitkamp led the easy-bucket brigade with a career-high 21 points to lead the Tigers to a rout in the second Division III region semifinal at Trent Arena.
“He’s been fired up here this last month or so, so we need to have him continue to do really good things,” Versailles coach Travis Swank said. “He is just tenacious right now. He doesn’t want the season to end.”
Swank has led his team to seven district finals and four district titles in his eight seasons. But this was his first win in the regional tournament.
Despite their record, the Tigers feel they belong in the regional finals. They play in the rugged Midwest Athletic Conference and lost non-league games to Russia, Lima Central Catholic and Miami East. Swank said it was league losses to Delphos St. John’s in late January and Coldwater in early February that began the turnaround. The Tigers are 8-2 since.
“We couldn’t win those tight ballgames, and even though we lost, those are our turning points of our season,” Swank said. “We started understanding that we’re pretty good team because those teams are quality teams, and we’re right there.
“We just got to do stuff a little bit better.”