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Ottawa-Glandorf's
T.J Metzger takes a foul shot against Ironton
Thursday in
the D-III semi-final game with Ironton. Metzger scored 36
against the Tigers in the
state final game and was eventually named MVP
of the tournament.
Metzger photo courtesy of The Putnam County Times
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A masterful performance
A tough loss
By George Starks
COLUMBUS- “We had a great tournament run but what we saw today, is
something you don’t see very often.”
Those were the words of Versailles boys basketball coach Scott
McEldowney after his Tigers loss to Ottawa-Glandorf, 67-46, Saturday in
the D-III boy’s state basketball game, as McEldowney spoke of the
Titan’s star basketball player T.J. Metzger.
Metzger dropped in nine of 14 from three point range (64.4 percent) and
scored 36 points in the lopsided defeat of Versailles.
“He’s a good player with a really sweet shot,” said Tigers sophomore
Kyle Ahrens. “When someone is that hot in a game, you’re not going to
shut him down easily. You want to get a hand in his face but he was
going off non-stop. It got really tiring in the second half chasing him
but I didn’t want him shooting the ball or even getting the ball at
all. It was really tough but he’s a great player. They are a great team
and I give them credit.”
From the 5:03 point in the opening frame, and the score knotted at 9-9,
Glandorf exploded for 12 unanswered points, eight by Metzger with six
by way of the triple.
After that run by the Titans, the Tigers would never recover, trailing
35-20 at the half but getting the deficit to under nine on two
occasions in the third quarter.
“When you see a kid get in a zone to that degree, I just told Kyle to
play him tight on defense,” McEldowney said. “We looked for as much
help off the dribble as we could get but they run some good sets and we
had a very short time to prepare. It’s really tough to stop a kid like
him. This is a kid that goes out and puts it down (dunking the ball)
with two hands pretty easy and has quite a few times this year. Give my
kids a lot of credit. We got knocked down early but we kept coming back
and we never quit playing. We could get it to nine and before you knew
it, it was 17 points or whatever. The game played out pretty even after
that but we had to chase them for that stretch.”
The loss would mark the end of two high school careers, that being Chad
Winner (10 points in the loss) and Jacob Heitkamp, two points Saturday.
“This will be a day in my life I’ll never forget,” said Winner. “We
played hard and we came up short but this will be a day I will cherish
the rest of my life.”
Even though McEldowney never commented, the loss of Heitkamp and Winner
(two starters) will be huge, the Tigers will return Ahrens, Nick
Campbell and Damien Richard off the starting five and a host of solid
players off the bench including Jacob Wenning and Evan Philpot as well
as Jace Barga and Ryan Knapke.
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Versailles
Sophomore Kyle Ahrens blows around T.J. Metzger during first half
action in Columbus Saturday. CNO photo by Dylan Knoop
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