DAYTON- When it came to acts of great escapes, Harry Houdini was the best in the business.

Thursday at the University of Dayton Arena, the Versailles Tigers pulled off an escape of their own that might have amazed the great Houdini, being forced to come from behind to beat Stivers, 65-54, to advance to the ‘Sweet 16’ of the OHSAA basketball tournament
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“This is just awesome,” said Versailles coach Scott McEldowney. “I told the kids tonight just how hard the districts were. Certain nights, things don’t go exactly perfect for you and it didn’t go perfect tonight.”

Heading into their D-III district game with the Stivers Tigers, Versailles was considered to be the favorite to win but Stivers saw things a little differently.

Through the first two quarters, Stivers held one point leads at each break, despite being up 23-16 with 3:49 remaining in the half after going on a 12-6 run to start the frame.

After a time out, Versailles started to play its brand of ball, ‘Tiger Ball’ and trailed 25-24 at the half. While Versailles had been able to hang close, McEldowney’s bunch had to get it done with Nick Campbell, Chad Winner and Kyle Ahrens in foul trouble.

“We had some kids (Jace Barga, Evan Philpot and Ryan Knapke off the bench) step up and gave us some solid minutes.” McEldowney stated. “We had to go back with them as time in the second quarter went on but we were able to stay close.”

When Versailles walked off the floor at the half, McEldowney had Campbell with three fouls while Winner and Ahrens had two each.

“With them in foul trouble there in the second quarter, we had to play zone and we’ve been working on that a lot lately,” McEldowney pointed out. “As much as we hate to play it, we knew that sooner or later, we were going to need it. Tonight, we definitely needed it.”