Shawnee attacks Ottoville en route to win

SHAWNEE TOWNSHIP - A game plan that went almost exactly according to plan for 16 minutes provided Shawnee with a lead it never lost on its way to a 74-69 boys basketball win over Ottoville on Tuesday night.

Shawnee wanted to answer Ottoville's attacking pressure defensive by attacking on offense from the beginning of the game.

A 40-24 runout to start the game, powered by guards Garrick Werthem and Cody Smith combining to hit 14 of their first 15 shots, helped Shawnee win for the fourth time in six games. Ottoville lost for the first time in six games this season.

Smith and Werthem scored 23 points each to lead Shawnee. Seth Rosenbauer had 13 points and 11 rebounds and Marcus Lowe scored 11 points and pulled down eight rebounds.

Andrew Koch led Ottoville with 22 points, Scott Pohlman had 13 points and Jacob Landin scored 10.

"We wanted to go attack. In the games we've seen Ottoville this year when they did press teams, those teams didn't attack the way we thought we could attack," Shawnee coach Nick Bertke said. "We said if they were going to press us, we were going to go attack them."

That approach was no surprise, Ottoville coach Tom Von Sossan said.

"We've gotten a lot out of our pressure defense the first four or five games. We knew that, although we got some (turnovers) early, they've got some pretty good guards and we weren't going to take the ball from them all night," he said.

The unexpected part was Shawnee running off a 23-0 streak in the first quarter after the Big Green jumped out to a seven-point lead early.

The Indians, who led 30-14 after one quarter were still in front by 12 points, 64-52, after three quarters. But they saw Ottoville chip away at that lead to the point that the Big Green had two chances to tie the game late in the fourth quarter.

After shooting 60 percent in the first three quarters, the Indians hit just 1-of-7 field goal attempts in the fourth quarter as the game kept getting tighter and tighter. It wasn't until Werthem hit two free throws with four seconds to play that the issue was decided.

"We wanted to be there at the end and we had a shot. We came in here and gave ourselves a shot to win," Von Sossan said.

Rosenbauer and Lowe led Shawnee to a 33-18 rebounding edge. The Indians played without starting center Jacob Meyer, who was unavailable because of a death in the family.

"It was a nice win for us," Bertke said. "Ottoville is a team that if you get them down double digits, they're going to battle back."