New Bremen falls to Columbus Grove in regional final.
VAN WERT — New Bremen’s triumphant tournament run came to an end Friday night, losing 50-48 in a nailbiting regional final to Columbus Grove.
Picking up the action late in the fourth, New Bremen held a 44-39 lead following a bucket by David Homan.
On the other end, Columbus Grove’s Blake Reynolds scored inside and the Bulldogs took a time-out with 2:37 left.
Following the timeout, Dan Homan scored on a putback and the Cardinals again led by five.
Columbus Grove’s Trey Sautter then hit a three from the corner to make it a 46-44 game.
Dan Homan was fouled the Cardinals next trip down the court, but missed both ensuing free throws.
Gabe Clement then nailed a triple and the Bulldogs regained the lead at 47-46.
With 56 seconds left, Reece Busse was fouled and went to the line for the one-and-one. Busse drilled both free throws and the Cardinals were back in front.
On Grove’s next possession, they ran over 30 seconds off the clock before calling timeout.
Following the stoppage, Tayt Birnesser found himself open and hit a 3-pointer from straight away and the Bulldogs led 50-48.
New Bremen took a timeout to set up a final play.
Underneath Columbus Grove’s basket with 10.9 seconds left, Nick Alig inbounded the ball to Mitchell Hays who took it across half-court and passed it over to David Homan on the right side with five seconds left.
Homan took a few dribbles, drove baseline and got near the rim and shot to try for the tie.
Columbus Grove’s Ethan Halker met Homan on the block and challenged the shot. The ball bounced off the backboard and it was rebounded by Sautter as time expired, sealing the win for the Bulldogs.
Columbus Grove scored 17 points in the fourth quarter, with 15 of those points coming from beyond the arc.
“It’s tough to beat anyone when you give up five threes in the fourth quarter,” said Cardinals coach Cory Stephens. “They have many good players, but when you hold Reynolds to two points in the fourth quarter — they hit five threes and that’s huge. Especially in a tight game when you can score 15 points in one quarter from the three-point line. That’s big.”
Reynolds notched a double-double on Friday, scoring 12 points and grabbing 12 rebounds.
The go-ahead threepointer by Birnesser late in the fourth quarter was his fifth threepointer of the night.
“We knew he was a shooter. We said chase
him off the line,” said Stephens. “I believe Reynolds passed him the ball and our goal was to take Reynolds out of the game defensively and he hit the open player like good players do.”
To begin the game, New Bremen fell behind 8-2 early on but the Cardinals worked their way back in and ultimately tied it at 11-11 to end the quarter.
The Cardinals took their first lead of the game after David passed to Daniel Homan on a backdoor cut and Homan laid in the reverse layup to go up 1311.
Nathan Rindler scored with under a minute left and the Cardinals entered the locker room at the half up 22-18.
Columbus Grove started the third quarter on a 7-0 run and led 2522 midway through the quarter.
The Bulldogs eventually took a 31-24 lead, but good, patient offense by New Bremen helped get the game to a 33-33 tie heading into the fourth.
New Bremen led 3836 after Daniel Homan scored inside on the block and later David hit an and-one layup to put the Cardinals in front 40-39.
Busse then made a layup after a strong take to the hoop to go up 42-39. The Cardinals went up by five but would go on to drop the game as the Bulldogs hit key shots in key moments.
On the program’s turnaround since he first arrived, Stephens said there’s an expectation now to be in these big games.
“When I first got here, we were winning two to four games a year,” he said. “It started last year with the seniors. We told them the expectation when we made it to Wapak. This is an expectation now. We got to continue to do it. This year when we made it to Wapak, it’s like, ‘OK, the expectation was to make it here. Now, we got to expect more because we just can’t be satisfied.” Now, we’re in a regional final game and we’re one or two plays away from going to the Final Four, which is huge. It’s huge for our underclassmen. You know, great senior leaders — Mitchell, Daniel, Kyle and Zach Bertke. Great leaders and we have a lot of underclassmen that stepped up huge. It’s good for the program.
“We got to take that next step and expect more. There’s never anything wrong with setting high standards and that’s what we got to do.”
Columbus Grove 11 7 15 17 - 50 New Bremen 11 11 11 15 - 48
Columbus Grove Blake Reynolds 4-4 — 12, Tayt Birnesser 5-0 — 15, Gabe Clement 4-0 — 10, Trey Sautter 3-0 — 9, Ethan Halker 1-0 — 2. Totals: 19-35, 4-7 — 50.
New Bremen Mitchell Hays 1-0 — 2, Nick Alig 2-0 — 6, Reece Busse 6-4 — 16, David Homan 3-2 — 9, Daniel Homan 5-0 — 10, Trevor Bergman 1-0 — 3, Nathan Rindler 1-0 — 2. Totals: 19-41, 6-12 — 48.