SHINGLEHOUSE — Sometimes you just have a winning formula against an opponent.
That couldn’t be truer for two of the NTL’s closest rivals, as Otto-Eldred beat Oswayo Valley 50-44 on Thursday night, picking up their third victory of the season over the Green Wave.
It wasn’t easy on the road for Otto, as OV battled with them from start to finish. The Terrors led from the jump, and held an 18-13 lead after the first quarter.
In the second, however, OV began to find a bit of their scoring touch. Theo Henry went on a mini-run of his own to pace the Green Wave. Henry scored the final four points of the first half, and then the first five of the second. That nine point-outburst put OV up 28-25 early in the third.
Otto wouldn’t be down for long, as the Terrors clamped down defensively and allowed just four points the remainder of the quarter. They took a 35-32 lead into the fourth.
The final frame was a back-and-forth affair in the early going. The teams traded buckets until the score was knotted up at 37 and Otto head coach Dan Dalton called timeout.
After that timeout, Otto never trailed again. Freshman Cole Sebastian hit two consecutive shots for the Terrors to put them up 41-37. Dalton wanted his team to use its size and attack the rim, and that’s exactly what they did.
“(Cole) is one of those kids that sometimes looks like a freshman but a lot of times looks like a senior,” Dalton said. “In the last five minutes we took a couple of threes that I wasn’t happy with and I told them that we could get to the basket a lot more than what we were getting there. And we took advantage of that opportunity.”
Led by Sawyer Drummond, the Terrors dominated the boards on Thursday night. Drummond picked up 10 rebounds to go along with his team-high 15 points.
While there was plenty of time for OV to mount a comeback in the final minutes, Otto controlled the clock on offense and limited what the Green Wave could do at the other end of the court. The Terrors hit on their free throws in the waning moments and hit the exits with their ninth win in the last 10 games.
The win marked another tally in the dominance that Otto has shown its rival over the past two seasons. In addition to the three wins the Terrors have this season, Otto also beat OV in all three contests last year — including a double-overtime thriller in the playoffs. According to Oswayo Valley head coach Clark Cummings, five of those six games have been decided by seven or fewer points, which makes the defeats even tougher to swallow.
“They are battles and we just haven’t come out on the right end of them,” Cummings said. “They have a nice team. They have eight, nine guys that they can bring off the bench. Their defense has really improved over the last couple of years and it has limited scoring options for us. It’s hard to get the looks we want for certain guys against that defense.”
Cummings got all he could out of his top scorer on Thursday. Henry had 23 points, and was the only constant threat on the offensive end for the Green Wave (11-9 overall, 7-8 NTL). Cummings had seen this story play out before, however. His team was again in striking distance against Otto, but just couldn’t finish it off.
“We just made some basketball decisions that weren’t very smart,” Cummings said. “We had a 30-foot pass in transition in the final minutes that got picked off where we could’ve gotten an open look.
“I really thought they wore us down a little bit,” he added. “They rotated guys in. We are short a starter with an injury and that hurt. We had a couple open looks in the fourth and they were just short. I thought there ability to rotate guys in kind of wore on us some.”
Otto, meanwhile, remains one of the hottest teams in District 9. The Terrors (13-6, 9-5) have lost just once since Jan. 15, and continue to find new ways to win. The Terrors’ last two wins have come by a combined eight points, and Dalton likes how his team has been able to control tight games down the stretch, as evidenced by Thursday night.
“I think tonight we grew up a little bit too being late in the game and we had to control the ball a little bit more and the tempo of the game,” Dalton said. “We were preaching ball control late in the game seeing if we could run a few minutes off the clock here or there. It seemed to work out for us.”
AT SHINGLEHOUSE
Otto-Eldred (50)
Sawyer Drummond 6 3-4 15, Dalton 3 0-0 7, York 3 2-3 8, Cole Sebastian 3 0-0 6, Sheeler 2 2-3 6, Close 2 0-1 4, Sherwood 0 2-2 2, Chase Sebastian 0 2-2 2. Totals: 19 11-15 50
Oswayo Valley (44)
Theo Henry 7 6-6 23, Babcock 3 3-3 10, Karr 2 2-2 7, Bryant 1 2-2 4, Prouty 0 0-0 0. Totals: 13 13-13 44
Otto 18 25 35 50
Oswayo 13 23 32 44
Three-point goals: Oswayo 5 (Black 3, Babcock 1, Karr 1), Otto 1 (Dalton); Total fouls: Oswayo 16, Otto 13; fouled out: none
JV: no game
