March 4, 2004

SPORTS

Bulldogs advance to sectional finals

YSHS senior Dustin Rudegeair driving to the basket during the Bulldogs’ 50–39 sectional win over Bethel last Friday. Rudegeair passed the one-thousandth point mark for his high school career during the game.

The YSHS boys basketball team had a bigger challenge than they expected from the Bethel Bees in the second round of the Division IV Sectional tournament last Friday night at University of Dayton Arena.

Scoring just 5 points in the first quarter and ending the half behind by 6, the Bulldogs, seeded third in the Dayton bracket, looked like they were headed toward an upset. But the ’Dogs said that they wanted it more than the Bees and came back with enough bite to win the game, 50–39.

It may have been UD’s bright stadium lights that caught the Bulldogs on their heels at the start of the game and allowed Bethel to out-rebound and outscore Yellow Springs at the gate. While the Bees were double- and triple-teaming the Bulldogs’ big men and clambering for rebounds, the ’Dogs played passively and lost momentum in transition as the Bees led 24–18 at the end of the first half.

Quick defensive play by Rory Hotaling and Brandon Frye and two back-to-back 3-pointers in the second quarter kept the game close until the Bulldogs could get resuscitated at halftime.

Jordan Skinner scored 6 points early in the third to tie the score at 24 for the first time. With a few more 3-pointers the Bulldogs took the lead 34–31 at the end of the third.

Though Bethel stayed on the Bulldogs’ tail and kept the score close, YSHS would not give up the lead. Skinner and Dustin Rudegeair made several big plays to swat back the Bees.

By the time Skinner scored several breakaway layups, the Bees were forced to foul the Bulldogs. But the ’Dogs simply made their foul shots and kept on scoring, ending the game with an 11-point lead.

Rudegeair, a senior, scored the one-thousandth point of his high school career on a free throw in the third quarter, becoming one of the eight YSHS boys basketball players to attain the status. He is the first to do it since Cary Cordell hit 1,000 as a senior in 1992. Rudegeair finished with 12 points and 10 rebounds.

Skinner scored a team-high 20 points and also grabbed 10 rebounds.

Coach Brad Newsome said that he was proud of the Bulldogs for coming back to win. The game was closer than the Bulldogs had hoped, but they managed a character-building comeback, he said.

“At the half we decided we wanted to dictate the pace, and we knew if we didn’t get it together, we were going home tonight,” Newsome said.

“We just played harder and realized we didn’t want to walk home for good,” Rudegeair said of the team’s effort. “We decided we did want it more than Bethel.”

The Bulldogs face No. 2-seeded Southeastern in the sectional finals on Saturday, March 6, at 1:30 p.m., at the UD Arena. Yellow Springs hasn’t played Southeastern in four years, though the two teams have the same 18–3 record.

Last year, the Bulldogs lost in the sectional finals to Cedarville. If the Bulldogs want to win this year, they will have to rebound better and play tougher from start to finish than they did on Friday, Newsome said.

Rudegeair agreed, recalling that Southeastern beat his McKinney School team.

“We want payback from junior high and for last year’s loss against Cedarville,” he said. “We’ve been waiting for this tournament our whole careers.”

If the Bulldogs win the sectional tournament, they advance to district finals and will play the winner of the Piqua Upper bracket on Wednesday, March 10, at 5:30 p.m., at Wright State University.

Beyond that are two regional games and then state, which the Bulldogs are “definitely capable of reaching,” Newsome said.

“We don’t have to beat all the teams at once, we just have to beat the one in front of us,” he said.

—Lauren Heaton

Lady ’Dogs lose to top-seeded Buccs

YSHS junior Evin Wimberly battling to take a shot around a Covington defender during the Lady Bulldogs’ 54–34 loss in the sectional tournament last Thursday. Wimberly scored 12 points in the Lady Bulldogs’ final game of the year.

The YSHS girls basketball team took a hard hit after losing 50–31 to Covington in the second round of Division IV sectional tournament last Thursday at Tippecanoe High School.

The Lady Bulldogs came out determined not to relive an identical loss against Covington last year in the tournament’s second round, but it was not to be this year. The Lady ’Dogs finished the season 16–6, the best performance by a YSHS girls team in at least a decade.

The Lady ’Dogs fell behind in the first few minutes of the game against the Covington Buccs, the top seed in the Tipp City Lower bracket who came into the game 15–1, and the Buccs built their lead with each subsequent quarter.

After Covington led 13–6 through the first quarter, Megan Burrick hit a much needed 3-point shot early in the second to close the gap to 13–9. But that was as close as the Lady Bulldogs got.

Burrick and Evin Wimberly stepped up their defense but the Buccs’ air-tight defense kept the Lady Bulldogs out of the paint and short on finishing.

The Buccs led 27–16 at halftime, and by the end of the third quarter, their lead had more than doubled to 46–21. As the third-quarter buzzer went off, Wimberly chucked a full-court shot that futilely slapped off the backboard and sounded the Lady ’Dogs’ frustration.

The high points, such as Wimberly’s fourth-quarter 3-point bucket and back-to-back layups by Wimberly and Tricia McLinden, kept the Buccs score from climbing too high.

Feeling like they could have given the Buccs a greater challenge, the Lady Bulldogs’ emotions poured forth even before they left the court. A game with more intensity and vigor would have made a more fitting end to a great season, coach Shirley Cummins said. “When you walk away from a game feeling like you didn’t leave it all out there, that’s when it hurts,” she said.

“We were nervous and they had better defense than we did,” McLinden said. “It’s in the tough games that we fall apart.”

The Lady Bulldogs came out believing they were a different team than they were last year, and they were. The team had three new freshmen, who were on the floor together at one point in the game. The Lady ’Dogs also have just five upper classmen and only one senior. They improved their mental toughness during the season and won more games this year than they had before as a group. “We had a really good season, the best in a long time,” Sarah Finn said.

YSHS plans to schedule a more competitive season to prepare for teams like Covington next year, Cummins said.

The team’s top defender, Dana Ingham, will graduate this spring and will be missed for her encouraging team spirit.

“Dana is so coachable, and she’s come such a long way since she started,” Cummins said. “I love her to death and wish her the best of luck.”

—Lauren Heaton