By RYAN HINES
rhines@dailystandard.com
It’s hard to say whether the Lima Bath offense was that
bad, or if it was the Celina defense playing that well. Either
way, Bath shot just 16-percent from the field in the game and
Celina rolled to a 69-21 win on Friday night at the Fieldhouse
in Western Buckeye League action.
The Bulldogs improve to 10-3 overall on the season and 3-2 in
the WBL while Bath continues its downward slide to 1-10 overall
and 1-4 in league play.
Bath never could find a rhythm on offense hitting on just 7-of-44
shots from the field (0-of-11 on three-pointers) while scoring
just one point in the first quarter and two points in the third
quarter.
“We came out and played good defense right from the start,”
stated Celina head coach Mike Kanney. “That got us off
to a really good start and that’s exactly what we wanted
to do. Not only at the start, but we played great defense in
the second half too. Everyone off the bench contributed on defense
as well.”
While Bath was throwing up bricks for nearly the entire night,
Celina rebounded from a poor shooting night in its last game
against Elida.
The Bulldogs shot a season-low 27 percent in the loss to Elida
last Friday, but responded with a 49 percent shooting night
against Bath.
“We were disappointed after the loss last Friday, but
the kids came ready to practice on Monday and worked hard all
week,” said Kanney. “We worked hard on our shooting
in practice all week and we shot the ball better tonight.”
Celina put Bath in a hole early scoring the games first 13 points,
which was capped by a highlight reel dunk from Tim Homan. Celina’s
Brian Gagle had a contested breakaway layup that fell off the
rim but Homan leaped high in the air and caught the ball off
the rim and threw it down with authority on the two-handed dunk
bringing the Green and White fans to their feet. Homan finished
with 15 points in limited action.
Fort just the second time this season, Homan wasn’t the
leading scorer for the Bulldogs as fellow senior Adam Tindall
paced Celina with a game-high 16 points. Tindall was also the
top scorer for Celina against Kenton on Jan. 16th with 14 points.
Since Celina took control of the game early on, it allowed coach
Kanney to clear his bench and the bench responded by scoring
19 points and grabbing 20 rebounds. In all, 11 different Bulldogs
dented the scoring column and 11 players also grabbed at least
one rebound.
Rob Grubaugh led the Celina charge off the bench with six points
and seven rebounds while Brandon Wurster added six points and
five rebounds
“The guys that came off the bench all did a nice job tonight
and it’s nice to get everyone into the game,” noted
Kanney. “We got contributions from everyone.”
Celina is back in action tonight for a Mercer County showdown
hosting Coldwater.
The Bulldogs jayvee squad also made quick work of Bath as the
Green and White jumped out in front 28-2 in the first half and
won, 57-23.
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