Sectional
final 4:00 to jump out to a 3317 halftime lead.
Turner got the run going with a 3-pointer from the left wins with 5:05 left. After a Blake Wolf field goal, Turner found the basket again on a feed from Jadin Davis. Parks drove to the basket and laid one in for two with 3:46 left and Davis’ drive to the bucket one possession later to extend the lead to 26-15.
After Parks made 1-of-2 at the foul line, the Roughriders’ bench came to life as Brandon Bowers connected on a jumper from the left side, Gavin Reineke and went 2-of2 from the free-throw line to push the Riders’ lead to 31-17 with 1:18 left in the first half.
And with time ticking down in the first half, from the left wing, Bowers found a wide-open Turner atop just inside the 3-point line for a bank-shot jumper to give St. Marys its 33-17 halftime lead.
Turner scored eight points in that second quarter and the Riders’ bench pinched in by adding four more
“It’s helping, it’s helping,” Hegemier said when asked about his bench players. “Sully had a great game last Friday night and his energy on the floor is really good. So I decided to start him tonight. I thought he did a great job. He had a couple of things that weren’t really nice, but whatever, you drop three threes in a row. I was thinking on a couple of those, ‘Don’t take it, don’t, and he took it. Ah, whatever. He dropped them.
“Gavin comes off the bench, gets some good minutes and Bowers, I thought in the second quarter when we needed some help he did a real nice job. He wasn’t afraid to shoot it.”
The Roughriders also had contributions from Davis as the senior did more than just score points.
Davis came out firing with a pair of 3-pointers to greet the Wildcats and put his team ahead for a quick 6-0 lead and finished with a team-high 10 first-half points and ended the night with 17 points. On the defensive end, Davis snatched three long rebounds off 3-point misses to limit Napoleon to one-anddone possessions to aid the Riders in their 16-5 run.
“I’ve told him that when he scores, we win. And that’s basically it,” Hegemier said of Davis. “He’s a senior and he’s got to be a leader on the floor and sometimes when the ball is not going in, he can do a lot of other things for us.
“I’d hate to put that kind of pressure on him but I have all week.”
From there, Napoleon drew no closer than 14 points in the second half despite the Wildcats’ 11-3 run in the third quarter, but Brayden Sullivan, who started his first varsity game on Friday, drained a pair of 3-pointers late in that quarter to help extend the Roughriders’ lead back to 19 and thwart any Napoleon upset.
Since Hegemier came out of retirement following the 2018-19 season, the Roughriders have experienced a renaissance of sorts as the program has gone 34-10 overall and a sectional title.
“A lot. A lot of credit,” Williams said of Hegemier. “He is a fantastic coach. Honestly, he keeps us motivated and he keeps us up when things are down. When we had that three-game stretch, we were down but he kept us motivated, he kept us up.
“He is a great coach and I am glad we have him.”
With the win, the Roughriders will play Wauseon in a district semifinal at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at Spencerville High School.