FREDERICKTOWN — It was a boys basketball game that had it all, including seven lead changes in the final eight minutes, a player sitting out for part of the first quarter after taking an elbow to the chin, a technical foul, and a visiting fan ejected from the gym.
Most importantly it had Fredericktown defeating Marion Pleasant 68-60 for a sectional championship on Saturday afternoon.
“That’s what tournament basketball is supposed to be,” Freddies’ coach Derek Dibling said. “It’s not always pretty. It’s not always the way you scripted it, but at the end of the day there is one thing that matters and that is winning and you move on.”
For fourth-seeded Fredericktown (23-0), moving on means advancing to another home matchup in Wednesday’s 7 p.m. Division V district semifinal against No. 6-seed Fairbanks. The Panthers hammered Mount Gilead 78-44 in their sectional title tilt.
“It’s only going to get tougher,” Dibling said. “You go through different obstacles, and different portals and it prepares you for what’s down the road and you have no idea what’s coming up.”
Trading baskets
Carson Rinehart drilled a 3-point shot to give the hosts a 16-14 first-quarter lead, and the tone was set for a close encounter. Pleasant’s Evan Scowden hit a jumper to give the visitors a 30-29 edge at the intermission.
The third period saw four lead changes and three ties before the Freddies forged a 45-43 margin going into the final eight minutes.
The fourth quarter was a battle, too, with seven lead changes before Fredericktown began to pull away.
“I feel like, eventually we gained our composure,” Dibling said. “I don’t know if rattled is the right word, but whatever you call it, we just had to get back to some basics.”
Carson Rinehart led all scooters with 25 points, followed by Zane Luckmeier with 17 and Blake Sipes with 12.
Colin Jordan and Evan Sickmiller each booked 17 points with Colin Mattix accounting for 14 to spearhead the Spartans’ attack.
Pleasant finished the season 14-9, with a 7-7 record in the Mid-Ohio Athletic Conference. The Spartans won nine in a row before dropping their last regular-season game to Shelby 59-48.
(Photos by Dan Werner)
