SYLVANIA — Many coaches will agree that free throws can make or break a game, or even a season for any
team.
Saturday afternoon that theory was tested.
With the pressure of having the game in his hands, Bowling Green’s Xavier Brown made 5-of-6 free throw
attempts in the final 23 seconds of overtime against Southview, helping the Bobcats hang on for a 59-56
Northern Lakes League victory.
“I try not to make too much of a big deal out of it,” Brown said. “I know that it was a lot of pressure,
but I just kind of think about anything else to keep my mind off the pressure.”
It may not have been the prettiest of games for BG, but with the win, the Bobcats finished the regular
season with a record of 17-3 overall and 14-0 in the NLL.
“We’re 14-0 and nobody can take that away from us in the league,” BG head coach Von Graffin said. “We’ve
won the league before … but we’ve never gone 14-0 and that was important to our kids tonight.”
After trailing by as many as eight points in the third quartet, the Cougars out-scored the Bobcats 12-4
in the final 2:52 of the quarter to tie the game at 41.
Again in the fourth, Southview found itself trailing, this time by five. But it would eventually tie the
game at 48 with 4:21 left in regulation when Joe Vermilya hit his third and final three of the contest.
In an overtime period, that was dominated by free throws, there was seven lead changes and four ties. BG
took the lead for good when Brown, who finished with 16 points, made his stretch of shots from the
charity stripe.
The Bobcats shot only 19-of-49 (39 percent) from the floor and Southview was limited to just 20-of-53 (38
percent).
“You’re lucky to win games like this,” Graffin said. “You can play ugly and lose and then you feel
terrible. But we played ugly and won so we feel a little bit better about ourselves.”
Since BG’s offense wasn’t rolling as it would have hoped, it was forced to rely on defense in order to
hold on for the win.
“We were able to make key stops when we needed to and that’s a testament to our guys and how we guard,”
Graffin said.
Leading the Bobcat defense, which caused 17 turnovers and many tough shots, were senior Chauncey Orr and
sophomore Vitto Brown.
“What we really had to focus on was guarding the outside shooters … we’ve got to know that Vitto is our
insurance policy,” Xavier Brown said. “We’ve got to keep the shooters on the outside guarded, and I
think Chauncey (Orr) did a great job tonight guarding (Allen) Gant.”
Though Gant finished with 18 points, he missed his share of shots inside the paint.
Orr finished with a game-high 23 points for BG and Vitto Brown contributed h 12.
The Bobcats will hope to use this tight-game experience in the upcoming sectional tournament when it
faces the winner of Perrysburg and Lima Senior on Friday at Liberty-Benton High school.
“We have a good chance to go very far, but we’ve just got to stay positive and focused and continue to
communicate,” Xavier Brown said. “We’ve got a lot of confidence in what we can do in this tournament
run.”
Southview won the junior varsity game 74-51. Evan Gardner led BG with 23 points, while Andrew Herringshaw
added 12.
BGHS 59, SOUTHVIEW 56
BGHS
Beattie, 1-0—2; X. Brown, 4-8—16; Fairchild, 0-0—0; Dunn, 0-0—0; Orr, 7-9—23; V. Brown, 4-4—12; Dill,
0-0—0; Augsburger, 3-0—6. TOTALS: 19-21—59.
SOUTHVIEW
Sheng, 0-0—0; Sinram, 0-0—0; Chris Johnson, 4-1—9; Joe Vermilya, 0-3-2—11; Hunt, 0-3—3; Pinckney, 0-0—0;
Gant, 6-6—18; Renner, 3-1—7; Quinn, 2-0—4; Miller, 2-0—4. TOTALS: 17-3-13—56.
BGHS 11 13 17 7 11 —59
SOUTHVIEW 12 15 14 7 8 —56
Junior Varsity: Southview, 74-51.
