NEW WASHINGTON — Kennedy Deppen turned in a stellar performance in helping her team secure at least a share of the Northern 10 Athletic Conference title here Friday night.
Deppen scored 14 points and grabbed 7 rebounds and had two steals to lead Buckeye Central to a 42-37 win over Upper Sandusky and guarantee at least a tie for first place in the league.
Imagine if the 6-foot senior center had been feeling better.
“Kennedy was sick this week and wasn’t here the last few days of practice,” Buckettes head coach Abram Kaple said. “We recorded practice and sent it to her. I texted her yesterday and told her, ‘You’re going to have a big game.'”
“Kennedy was phenomenal. But by the end of the third quarter, she was running out of energy. You could see it in her face.”
Deppen seemed to take the spotlight in stride.
“We just knew last time it was a tough game, obviously. There was a lot of emotion coming into this game, it’s a big game; it’s senior night,” she said.
“It’s for the league title really, or at least for a share of it. I knew coming into this that even if I was sick and even if I didn’t want to be out on the floor the whole time, I knew what I had to do.”
Buckeye Central moves to 16-3, 11-1 N10, while Upper Sandusky slips to 14-5, 9-3 N10.
Kate Siesel added 10 and Ryley Kantzer 8 and 8 rebounds. Upper was led by Velourea Stowers’ 10 points. Teammates Kaidance Iles added 9 and Grace Walton 8.
It looked like a runaway was in the making as the hosts jumped ahead 12-3 after a quarter, but a 13-4 effort by the Lady Rams tied it at halftime 16-16.
“Inside I knew it’s important to all of us to put numbers up on the wall again and for how hard we’ve worked. I did it for my teammates and I did it for my coach because I had to.”
Kaple subbed Deppen out a few times to give her a breather.
“He told me, ‘You didn’t do anything wrong. I’m giving you a break because I know you’re tired,'” she said.
Iles hit two foul shots to cut it to 29-28 to open the fourth quarter.
Siesel answered with a 3-pointer from the left wing and, with 2:50 left in the game, Deppen hit a nice 12-footer and added a pair of free throws to increase BC’s lead to 38-33.
The Buckettes shot 75% from the free throw line, but Kaple said the four misses could have been costly.
“We missed some uncharacteristic ones and one of our better shooters, she missed two. But with everything at stake, our seniors playing at home, they capitalized when it mattered,” he said.
Kantzer picked up her fourth foul and Upper Sandusky pulled to within a point at 24-23 with under a minute in the third quarter.
“We were maneuvering through a ton of foul trouble and Grace Collene, who is a jayvee player, comes in and hits a huge shot that puts us up by 3 (26-23 at the end of the third quarter) and Paige (Collene) is working her freakin’ tail off to get offensive rebounds.
“We had Kate and Syd (Wurm) get points off offensive rebounds because we couldn’t get them open off sets to a point where they felt comfortable shooting it,” Kaple said.
“Syd attacked the basket. She missed a couple of shots but had a big one late and made free throws down the stretch. She has struggled with that, but she’s worked on it in practice and it paid dividends.”
Kaple noted the roles each girl played in the win.
“Paige does the dirty work and Nevaeh (Metzger) comes in and plays great defense. Everybody did what they were asked to do in their role and because of that we’re having a lot of success … whether it was 32 seconds or for 32 minutes.
“It’s a game of runs. Upper wasn’t gonna come in and fall over and die. They battled back and tied us at the half and the majority of the third quarter. They’re really scout-heavy, you’re going to struggle to score points.”
Lady Rams head coach Jerry Vent acknowledged his team got off to a sluggish beginning.
“We had a rough start. Offensively we couldn’t get anything going. Credit to Buckeye Central. We knew coach Kaple would know our strengths and what we wanted to do, and he knew that we knew what theirs were,” he said.
“I thought we won the first three minutes. Our goal every week is to do that. We did that last week against Carey,” Kaple said.
Vent said it was a “back-and-forth” game with both teams making big plays.
“They made a couple more than we did in the second half, early fourth quarter they extended it out a little bit. We lost a couple of their shooters. We missed an and-one and then a foul shot and that was the momentum shift they needed.”
Offensive rebounds favored Buckeye Central by a 15-3 margin.
“That’s on me because of how we were trying to defend them,” Vent said. “The Collene girl, we knew she would get some offensive rebounds because of how we were guarding. We tried to slow down their shooters, but the rebounding did get us. That’s not on our girls, that’s on me.
“They start 5 seniors and have been through a lot together. They weren’t going to give up a championship easy and they didn’t. They won tonight, but I thought that our girls played at a championship level.”
Deppen and her teammates know the importance of this victory.
“This is a really good time of the season to be doing good and be able to hopefully carry it over. We have three really important games coming up and then the tournaments. Hopefully, we can carry that confidence over. We want to win the league outright.”
Buckeye Central goes on the road against Bucyrus, Mapleton in a non-league game and Wynford to close the regular season.
For Kaple, his mantra remains the same.
“Defense travels. That’s our message to our kids and I’m sure it’s their message to theirs. You’re not always gonna make shots. You have to guard.”
Buckeye Central won 28-24 in the junior varsity tilt. Alyese Siefert had 8 points and Mara McDougal 7 for the Buckettes. Bryn Cundiff led the Lady Rams with 7 points.
Box score
Upper Sandusky 3 13 7 14 — 37
Buckeye Central 12 4 10 16 — 42
Upper Sandusky (14-5, 9-3 N10): Shots 14-35; 3-pt. shots 4-17 (Kaidance Iles 2, Addy Newman, Leah Kinley); Free throws 5-9; Rebounds 19 (Velourea Stowers 8); Turnovers 15. Scoring: Addy Newman 2 0 5, Grace Walton 3 2 8, Leah Kinley 2 0 5, Kaidance Iles 2 3 9, Velourea Stowers 5 0 10.
Buckeye Central (16-3, 11-1 N10): Shots 13-46; 3-pt. 4-13 (Kate Siesel 3, Sydney Wurm); Free throws 12-16; Rebounds 30 (Ryley Kantzer 8, Kennedy Deppen 7); Turnovers 9. Scoring: Kate Siesel 3 1 10, Sydney Wurm 1 2 5, Grace Collene 1 0 2, Kennedy Deppen 5 4 14, Ryley Kantzer 2 4 8, Paige Collene 1 1 3.
JV: Buckeye Central 28-24.