TOLEDO — When two teams play each other three times in a season, one usually knows what it is going to
get out of the other.
Tuesday night in the Division III sectional semifinals at Whitmer High School that was the case between
Lake and Otsego, except for one individual.
The Knights’ Drake Johnson, who has seen time on the junior varsity squad this season, scored 20 points
and recorded a game-high 13 rebounds as he helped lead his team to a 76-60 victory over the Flyers.
“It’s something that we didn’t gameplan against all week long,” Lake head coach Ryan Bowen said. “So hats
off to him for stepping up and taking advantage of a spot that’s given to him.”
This marks the third time that the Otsego (7-14) has defeated Lake (12-9).
“A.C (Limes) had a good game inside for us, but I thought the kid who played hardest for us all night and
the kid who has really come on for us is Drake Johnson,” Otsego head coach Jim Bostdorff said. “The last
three or four games he has just been all over the place and when we get four guys scoring like we did
tonight, we’re a little bit tougher to defend.”
Otsego’s starting five (Tommy Rodgers, Ryan Smoyer, Sam Forshey, A.C Limes, and Johnson) accounted for
all of the scoring, as four of them were in double-figures, and three had double-digit rebounds.
Rodgers scored 10 points, while Smoyer added 18 for the Knights.
Forshey accounted for seven points, but had 12 rebounds, and Limes had 21 points and 11 rebounds, while
shooting 11-of-12 at the free-throw line.
The Knights, who led by 10 or more points eight times in the second and third quarters, allowed Lake to
cut its deficit to as little as three before using a 13-2 scoring run to start the fourth, getting what
would prove to be an insurmountable 68-49 lead.
“It seemed like every time we would cut it down to two or three it would be 10 within a matter of
minutes,” Bowen said. “We really concentrated on trying to get bodies on Smoyer and Limes, and the other
two kids (Rodgers and Johnson) stepped up to have big nights. It makes it tough to stop everybody and
that’s what happened tonight.”
Lake’s up-tempo offense and pressure defense never seemed to phase Otsego as it continually broke the
full-court press with ease.
“We just wanted to make sure we got ball reversal,” Bostdorff said. “We knew that if we got ball reversal
we would be able to throw over top of (the press) and we were able to. We got the ball in the middle and
we got the ball over to Sam and that led sometimes to some baskets for us and other times we were smart
enough to pull it out and then go to our strengths.”
Though the Knights’ were credited to playing great defense by Bowen, as it held Lake to just 24-of-69 (35
percent) shooting, the Flyers’ Ra’Shad Smith scored a game-high 24 points, including five baskets from
behind the 3-point line.
Along with its defense, the rebounding may have made the difference in the game as Otsego held a 47-29
advantage on the boards, limiting Lake’s second-chance scoring opportunities.
“We really worked on boxing (Lake’s) big guys out,” Limes said. “We’ve been getting shoved under the
basket so we were really working on pushing them out from underneath the basket.”
“(Dylan) Hirzel hurt us the first two times we played them and we wanted to try to keep them off the
glass,” Bostdorff said. “We also knew that they’re a jump-shooting team and that rebounds were going to
come off long so our guards were going to have to help us and Drake did a really great job at that.”
Otsego will face Delta in the sectional finals on Friday at 8 p.m. at Whitmer High School.
DIVISON III
OTSEGO 76, LAKE 60
OTSEGO
Rodgers, 3-4—10; Smoyer, 3-3-3—18; Serrato, 0-0—0; Hefflinger, 0-0—0; Nyler, 0-0—0; Austin, 0-0—0;
Forshey, 3-1—7; Harter, 0-0—0; Johnson, 5-1-7—20; Limes, 5-11—21. TOTALS: 19-4-26—76.
LAKE
Tantari, 3-1-0—9; Metz, 0-0—0; McKee, 2-1—5; Pennington, 1-2—4; Kohlhofer, 0-1-0—3; Ismail, 0-0—0;
Robinson, 1-0—2; Hotmer, 1-0—2; Hirzel, 2-1—5; Scanlan, 0-0—0; Smith, 4-5-1—24; Pierce, 3-0—6. TOTALS:
17-7-5—60.
OTSEGO 19 24 12 21 —76
LAKE 11 22 14 13 —60
