Frank DiRenna,Dave PurpuraColumbus Dispatch
The regular season wraps up this week in central Ohio boys basketball. The Central District girls tournament starts Tuesday, and the boys begin the postseason Feb. 27.
Several boys league championships were clinched last week as girls teams focused on their postseason preparations. Tournament play got underway for a few central Ohio girls teams in the Southeast District.
Here are four things we learned this past week:
1. Worthington Christian boys win Central Buckeye League title
The Warriors knocked off Columbus Academy, the top seed in the Division III district tournament, 47-35 on Friday to win the championship in the first season of the CBL. Both teams were in the MSL-Ohio a year ago.
Worthington Christian (17-4, 11-1) outscored the host Vikings 31-11 in the second half. The Warriors are seeded fifth in Division III.
“It feels good to bring it home and not tie (for the title) like last season,” coach Quintin Aden Jr. said. “We had to split it with (Academy last year). Our goal was to not split (the championship).”
Academy (17-4, 9-3) won the first meeting 52-44 on Jan. 16 at Worthington Christian.
Samuel Johnson, a Cedarville commit, led the Warriors in the rematch with 28 points and 25 rebounds.
“We were confident coming into this,” Johnson said. “It confirmed what we already believed going into the tournament.”
Anderson Davis led Academy with nine points.
“We’ll be fine,” coach Jeff Warstler said. “We take our medicine as good as anybody. We get beat,we have to try to fix what we did wrong and we’ll come back at it.”
The teams could meet again in a district final March 7 at Ohio Dominican.
2. Northland takes down South in City League boys title game
After winning all 14 of its City-South Division contests, South was no match for Northland in the league championship game Saturday at East.
The Bulldogs (16-4) trailed 18-8 after one quarter and 35-22 at halftime on the way to a 63-46loss. Maurice McCall led South with 17 points.
“We just couldn’t put runs together,” coach Ramon Spears said. “We had some bad shot selections. I don’t want to take anything away from what Northland did and how good they played, but we have to take some ownership of some of the things that we did. We did not have our best game.”
The Vikings (18-4) won their second consecutive City championship and 11th since 1999. They originally weren’t supposed to play in the game after sharing the City-North title with Linden-McKinley at 13-1, but the Panthers (16-6) were ruled ineligible because they had already played the maximum of 22 regular-season contests.
Nehemiah McMorris scored 12 of his 17 points in the fourth quarter to lead Northland. King Kendrick and Jaden Shoultz added 16 points apiece.
Assistant coach Leo Cleary-Foellner guided the Vikings in place of head coach Tihon Johnson, who sat on the bench but was observing hisSabbath.
Under a school district rule used in the event of a division tie, Linden normally would have played South because Northland participated in the City final more recently.
“It was motivation,” Cleary-Foellner said. “We always thought we should be in it. We always thought we deserved to be in it. South had an amazing year. They have a great group of kids and a special team, but we believed at the beginning of the year that we were supposed to be here, and we showed that today.”
South went 14-0 in league play for the first time.
3. Central Ohio teams snap title droughts
Some boys teams ended long waits last week when they clinched league championships, especially Olentangy.
Ulysses Ponder’s 27 points, a third of which came during a decisive 15-0 run in the third quarter, lifted the Braves to a 54-44 win at Marysville on Friday. Olentangy (12-8, 7-3 OCC-Cardinal) forced a tie for first place with Marysville (12-9, 7-3), capturing its first league title since 1992 in the Buckeye Athletic Conference.
Reynoldsburg’s 70-57 win over Pickerington Central earned the Raiders (15-5, 9-1) a tie atop the OCC-Buckeye with Newark and their first league championship since 2013.
Delaware Hayes (21-1, 13-1) celebrated its first title since 2014 by winning the OCC-Capital.
In the other OCC divisions, New Albany (OCC-Ohio) and Olentangy Orange (OCC-Central) earned their first titles in eight years.
On the other end of the scale, Fairbanks (18-4, 14-2) has won five consecutive Ohio Heritage Conference championships.
4. Southeast District girls semifinals are set
Two undefeated teams are one step away from a Division II Southeast District final showdown.
Circleville (23-0), the second seed in the district, faces No. 7 Athens (19-4) in the first half of a semifinal doubleheader Saturday at Chillicothe Southeastern. The second game pits No. 3 Thornville Sheridan (23-0) against sixth-seeded Jackson (21-2).
The winners face off Feb. 28 at Southeastern.
Sheridan was third and Circleville was fifth in last week’s Associated Press state poll.
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