NEW WASHINGTON — Few regular-season high school basketball games are billed as must-sees. And few of those live up to the billing.
Seneca East-Buckeye Central girls became an exception.
The top two teams in the Northern 10 Athletic Conference faced off for the second time this season with the league title on the line. It was an instant classic.
In the end, the visiting Lady Tigers outlasted the host Buckettes, 63-56, in double overtime to clinch the first Seneca East girls’ league basketball championship in nearly four decades.
“I can’t even fathom it right now,” Seneca East coach Don Vogt said of the league title. “This is the first time in, what I’ve been told, 37 years for Seneca East, apparently, way back when there was a Seneca County League or something of that nature.
“I wrote on the board here before the game: That means that literally hundreds of Seneca East kids will never get to enjoy what you get the opportunity to enjoy tonight. And they’re enjoying it.”
It was certainly not a sure thing. Buckeye Central recognized the gravity of the situation with their titles hopes hanging in the balance.
“We talked about that in terms of, it wasn’t going to be a blowout,” Buckettes coach Abram Kaple said. “We were evenly matched, and it was going to be a couple of possessions. In double overtime, we don’t have a ton of depth and I don’t sub a whole lot. We just kind of ran out of gas.”
It was a game of ebbs and flows with some oddity mixed in. The game started like the near-capacity crowd was probably hoping for, with both teams scoring 15 points in the first quarter.
Then came one of the oddities: There were a total of two points scored in the second quarter by two usually high-powered offenses. Lexi Evak had a basket for Buckeye Central (16-3, 12-2 N10) at the 7:31 mark of the period and that was it.
The drought was the result, not from either team slowing it down — Seneca East (19-1, 15-0) was 0-13 from the field and the Buckettes were 1-12 — it was excellent defense.
The result was that Buckeye Central went to the locker room at intermission with a 17-15 lead.
The eventual heroine for the Lady Tigers, sophomore Jessica Bowerman, spent much of the second quarter on the bench with foul trouble which contributed to the lack of scoring.
Despite that, Bowerman finished with a game-high 26 points, including a key basket, a stick-back of her own missed free throw in the second extra session, that helped seal the victory.
“She’s a leader and she’s a gamer and she steps up,” Vogt said of Bowerman. “And she did tonight, with great plays and they all had great plays. They all played so well as a team.”
“She’s a stud, she’s a great player,” Kaple said. “She sat the majority of the second quarter, and she ends up with (26). She’s a tremendous athlete. She’s guarding our best player on the other end of the floor, so they’re not hiding her on defense. Hats off to her.”
The Buckettes looked to take control of the game in the third quarter, however. With the Tigers trying to take away the Pifher sisters — Courtney and Claudia — Buckeye Central got contributions from Kyleigh Brown and Elizabeth Heydinger, who scored four points each in the frame, to take a 33-26 lead by period’s end.
“We kind of knew that and it happened the first time that we played too,” Vogt said. “I think Heydinger came off the bench had had 10 points (that night).”
But the Tigers fought back in the fourth quarter, though they trailed by as many as eight on a basket by Heydinger with 6:32 left in regulation.
From there, Seneca East went on a 9-0 run to grab a 40-39 lead, aided by a spate of BC turnovers, seven for the fourth quarter and six of which happened in the last five minutes.
“We turned it over and I only had two timeouts going into the fourth quarter,” Kaple said. “We were up seven, at 39-32, then they took the lead at 40-39. I had to take one timeout. That’s the thing, you only get five (timeouts) and you have to time them out. Maybe I took it a little too late to break up that run.”
The game ended tied at 43-43 in regulation and the drama continued.
The teams scored six points each in the first overtime, with Alexis Hicks scoring her only basket of the night with six seconds left to send it to the second overtime session.
“I told them before the game, everybody has to rise up,” Vogt said. “I don’t care if you’re the eighth person or the first person. If you get .3 rebounds, tonight you get 2.3 rebounds.”
The game was still tied at 55-55 on two Claudia Pifher free throws with 2:19 remaining before Seneca East began to pull away.
Bowerman sealed the win, for all intents and purposes, when she grabbed her missed free throw and muscled it up for a 59-55 Tigers’ lead with 1:06 to go. Seneca East kept the Buckettes at bay with four free throws from there.
Claudia Pifher led Buckeye Central with 13 points and Brown added 10. Taylor Ratliff had nine rebounds. All six Buckettes who scored had at least eight points.
“If you look at the scoreboard right now, it’s (22 and 26) for (Seneca East) and we got 13, eight, eight 10 and Kyleigh Brown’s no on there, but she probably had eight or 10 too. So, we were more balanced.
“I think that speaks volumes. We had some girls step up and make some big shots. We were just about four of them short.”
Marina Adachi seconded Bowerman with 22 points, including four 3s, three of which came in the third quarter to keep the Tigers in the game. Emily Siesel added 10 points and Hicks pulled down nine boards.
“You can tell, Marina, when she steps up, plays ‘D’ and hits some 3s, that’s the leadership that everybody is searching for,” Vogt said. “Luckily, she did in that third quarter.”
“People got their six dollars’ worth, that’s for sure,” Kaple said. “Listen, we had our chances to win and Seneca East probably feels that they did too. They just kind of had a little bit more left in the tank there at the end.”
“Our kids have heart, they have a lot of heart,” Vogt said. “Not to take away anything from Buckeye because they have a phenomenal team and a good coach, and they played their hearts out too.
“What a great atmosphere they created here tonight for all the players,” he continued. “We’re just thankful to be part of that.”
“We were going to learn something, win or lose and we definitely did,” Kaple said. “Now, if we put ourselves in a position to win a sectional, to win a district, to win a regional, if we can get there, we can look back and say we played this game.”
Box score
Seneca East 15 0 11 17 6 14 — 63
Buckeye Central 15 2 16 10 6 7 — 56
Seneca East (19-1, 15-0 N10): Shots 23-62; 3-pt. shots 5-20 (Marina Adachi 4, Emily Siesel); Free throws 12-15; Rebounds 36 (Alexis Hicks 9); Turnovers 8. Scoring: Jessica Bowerman 10 6 26, Emily Siesel 3 3 10, Bailey Hamilton 0 1 1, Marina Adachi 8 2 22, Caylin Quiggle 1 0 2, Alexis Hicks 1 0 2.
Buckeye Central (16-3, 12-2 N10): Shots 23-50; 3-pt. shots 2-10 (Taylor Ratliff 2); Free throws 8-14; Rebounds 34 (Taylor Ratliff 9); Turnovers 17. Scoring: Claudia Pifher 3 7 13, Taylor Ratliff 3 0 8, Courtney Pifher 4 0 8, Kyleigh Brown 5 0 10, Lexi Evak 4 0 9, Elizabeth Heydinger 4 0 8.
JV: Seneca East 45-33.