{"id":163704,"date":"2023-03-03T23:33:36","date_gmt":"2023-03-04T04:33:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/?p=163704"},"modified":"2023-03-04T12:37:42","modified_gmt":"2023-03-04T17:37:42","slug":"knights-win-d-iv-district-title-in-2ots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/2023\/03\/03\/knights-win-d-iv-district-title-in-2ots\/","title":{"rendered":"Knights win D-IV district title in 2OTs"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

SCOTT TRUXELL\/<\/strong>independent editor<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

ELIDA — Simply put, Friday night\u2019s Division IV district championship game at the Elida Fieldhouse was one for the ages. No. 1 seed Crestview rallied from a 14-point third quarter deficit then outlasted No. 3 seed Ottoville to win the Division IV district championship 63-61 in two overtimes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A driving layup by Mitch Temple with four seconds left proved to be the game winner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Crestview’s Mitch Temple scored 17 points in the second half, including the game winner in the second overtime. Bob Barnes\/Van Wert independent<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The win puts the Knights (22-3) in the regional semifinals against Mohawk at 8 p.m. Tuesday at Bowling Green State University. Ottoville\u2019s season ended at 19-6.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The seemingly improbable comeback began when the Knights were down 39-25 with approximately two minutes left in the third quarter. Wren Sheets hit four consecutive free throws to make it 39-29 entering the fourth quarter, then Crestview scored the first six points of the fourth quarter on buckets by Carson Hunter and Sheets and a pair of foul shots by Gavin Etzler. Later in the fourth, Nate Lichtle hit a trey that tied the game 47-47, then Kellen Schlagbaum split a pair of free throws, giving Ottoville a one point lead. However, Sheets hit a foul shot with 9.6 seconds left, enough to force an extra session.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think getting it back to 10 was big for us going into the fourth quarter but I thought our effort defensively in the fourth quarter was the best it had been all night,\u201d Crestview head coach Doug Etzler said. \u201cWe have a lot of seniors that don\u2019t want to go home and I think they played like that in the fourth quarter. I wish it would have been like that all game.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think it was just a slow march with foul situations and some things kind of caught up to us a little bit,\u201d Ottoville head coach Keith Utendorf said. \u201cWe had a couple of turnovers here and there in that stretch but we had some really good looks, they just didn\u2019t go down. Credit Crestview to come back from 14-down in the second half\u2026they earned it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first overtime ended 54-54, but the Knights scored the first six points of the second overtime, including four by Sheets. The Big Green didn\u2019t score until the 1:06 mark, then tied the game 61-61 on a triple by Schlagbaum, only to see Temple score with four seconds left. The Big Green got a three-pointer off at the buzzer but it glanced off the rim.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Temple led Crestview with 17 points, all in the second half, including 13 in the fourth quarter and both overtimes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Crestview head coach Doug Etzler celebrates a district championship. Bob Barnes photo<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAt halftime I really challenged him and Wren,\u201d Etzler said. \u201cI thought they weren\u2019t playing as good as they could play for us and he really stepped up and Wren really stepped up and those two did a great job for us in the second half and played how we think they\u2019re capable of playing. When you get challenged like that it can go one of two ways and I thought both of them went the right way and got it done for us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sheets finished with 15 points, with 13 coming in the second half. Gavin Etzler added 14 points and Lichtle finished with 11. Temple and Sheets each had seven rebounds and after being out-rebounded 16-8 in the first half, the Knights closed the gap to a respectable 31-28 margin by the end of the game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cRebounding is a lot of toughness and effort and the first three quarters I thought Ottoville owned that category, but we did a much better job late when we weren\u2019t giving them second shots,\u201d Etzler said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Schlagbaum recorded a double-double with 26 points and 10 rebounds, while Carter Horstman added 16 points for Ottoville.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m proud of our guys for playing their butts off,\u201d Utendorf said. \u201cThey responded every time and that\u2019s all we\u2019ve asked of them. They countered and we countered back. This gym has seen a lot of special games and I think this one has to rank up there somewhere.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ottoville raced out to a 20-10 lead at the end of the first quarter, with Schlagbaum scoring 13 and Horstman seven. The scoring pace slowed in the second quarter and the Big Green took a 27-19 lead into halftime. Gavin Etzler accounted for seven of Crestview\u2019s points in the second period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOttoville came out and hit us in the mouth for three straight quarters and we didn\u2019t have an answer,\u201d the elder Etzler said. \u201cI\u2019m just glad our guys kept fighting and gave us a shot in the fourth and the overtimes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Crestview\u2019s regional semifinal opponent, Mohawk (22-3), defeated Hopewell-Loudon 46-45.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe toughest thing about it is we had already played our first three (tournament) opponents so we had a little better idea going into it, but we haven\u2019t played them, so there\u2019s a lot of film work tonight,\u201d Etzler said. \u201cWe\u2019ll get a game plan together and start work on it tomorrow but tomorrow has to be a little bit of rest too. We really battled here and it\u2019s been a grind for our guys but maybe we\u2019ll try to walk through some things but hopefully we can come up with a game plan that\u2019s good enough to make us compete on Tuesday.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Box score<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Crestview 10 9 10 19 6 9 \u2013 63
Ottoville 20 10 12 9 6 7 \u2013 61<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Crestview: Gavin Etzler 4-3-14; Mitch Temple 4-9-17; Carson Hunter 1-0-2; Nate Lichtle 4-0-11; Wren Sheets 4-7-15; Nasir Easterling 1-2-4<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ottoville: Jace Langhals 1-1-3; Grant Leis 1-0-2; Kellen Schlagbaum 8-6-26; Alex Suever 1-2-5; Carter Horstman 7-2-16; Michael Turnwald 1-2-5; Keaton Schnipke 1-2-4<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
The Crestview Knights are Division IV Elida district champions. Bob Barnes photo<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SCOTT TRUXELL\/independent editor ELIDA — Simply put, Friday night\u2019s Division IV district championship game at the Elida Fieldhouse was one for the ages. No. 1 seed Crestview rallied from a 14-point third quarter deficit then outlasted No. 3 seed Ottoville to win the Division IV district championship 63-61 in two overtimes. A driving layup by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-163704","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-04 17:30:30","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163704","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=163704"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163704\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":163722,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163704\/revisions\/163722"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=163704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=163704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=163704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}