Lehman Catholic’s Braden Ulbrich is stepping into his new role as starting point guard. He scored 10 points and made the winning free throw. (Press Pros Feature Photos By Logan Howard)
Lehman Catholic remained unbeaten by winning a back-and-forth game that came down to a sophomore point guard at the free-throw line.
Troy, OH – Early January stages don’t get more intimidating for high school basketball players. And they don’t require more prayers.
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But standing at the foul line – while everyone stood in the packed bleachers at Troy Christian, some praying for a make, some praying for a miss – Lehman Catholic sophomore Braden Ulbrich assessed a situation he had never experienced.
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Tie score in overtime and 3.5 seconds left. Fans praying for the miss got their prayer answered when Ulbrich missed the first shot. Troy Christian called a timeout to apply more ice, make Ulbrich think about it even more. Didn’t work.
The fans praying for the make got their prayers answered this time when Ulbrich calmly – at least that’s how he appeared – swished the second one. All the Eagles could do was rush the ball up court and heave a 40-footer that didn’t have a prayer.
And Lehman, the team that’s been hearing about how they haven’t beaten anybody, escaped with a 55-54 Three Rivers Conference victory in a raucous, tournament-like atmosphere that seemed too chaotic for anyone to pray.
Lehman Catholic’s Shane Frantz was defended tightly all night. But his 13 third-quarter points put the Cavaliers in position to win.
“I couldn’t hear anything,” Ulbrich said. “Said a little prayer, and I hit the free throw.”
If this game had been at least a week earlier, Ulbrich might not have been on the floor when he was fouled in a loose-ball situation as the Cavaliers worked toward a final shot. Ulbrich scored 10 points and made his second straight start at point guard because of the departure of four-year starter Turner Lachey.
Lachey, the Cavaliers’ all-state quarterback, was the quarterback and loudest voice on the floor for the Cavaliers. But he left Sidney after the Cavaliers’ January 2 game to attend a baseball academy in Nashville. That put Ulbrich in the starting lineup for the rest of the season at his natural position.
“It’s going to be a learning curve with him,” first-year coach Jeremy Hughes said. “But as you can see, he’s up for the challenge. He’s been in training wheels, but I’ve had confidence in Braden ever since I stepped in here.”
The Cavaliers are up to the challenge, too. They mostly breezed through their first 11 games. But now they are 12-0 and 6-0 in the TRC with a win over Troy Christian (9-1, 5-2).
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“It’s a statement game for us,” Ulbrich said. “People say we don’t play anybody. We came here and beat a good team.”
Now the Cavaliers’ schedule is full of challenges. They play at Urbana (10-1, 4-0 Central Buckeye Conference) on Tuesday and at Northridge (10-1, 6-0 TRC) next Friday. The talented Polar Bears just beat Troy Christian 65-43 on Tuesday. The Cavs also will play Troy Christian and Northridge a second time.
Lehman’s Gus Richard denies Troy Christian’s Riston Taylor, who otherwise had a good night with 22 points.
The challenge is not one the Cavaliers are afraid of even without Lachey.
“We’re down a man, obviously, with Turner being gone, but we’ve always been this next-man mentality,” Hughes said. “I know it’s cliche to say, everybody says it, but it’s literally a key to this team.”
For Troy Christian, it was a second straight loss in a gauntlet week. The Eagles play at unbeaten Tri-Village on Saturday night. Eagles head coach Ray Zawadzki, despite the loss, enjoyed the atmosphere of a highly anticipated home game.
“It’s a great night for high school basketball,” he said. “This is a great reason, if you’re a kid, to want to play some day. I was glad to be part of a great night of basketball. Two very good basketball teams. Unfortunately, somebody had to lose.”
Who would lose was in question for 36 minutes.
After both teams battled through eight first-half ties with hard defense and some sloppy offense, the second half erupted into the game everyone came to see. Riston Taylor (22 points) and Noah Fecher (18 points) opened the second half with 3-pointers in the first minute to stake the Eagles to a 24-18 lead, the largest for either team.
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The Eagles were flying high. Then Lehman star Shane Frantz, a 6-foot-5 junior leading the TRC in scoring at 23.8 a game, rallied his team with 13 of his 20 points in the third quarter.
“It wasn’t like we slipped and left him alone,” Zawadzki said. “He made some quality shots.”
Frantz did it with three 3-pointers, two slashing drives and a 17-footer off the bounce. Every shot was contested. He was just better than the defense. And he put his team up 38-37 entering the fourth quarter.
The battle for rebounds and loose balls showed the desire each team had to win a pivotal Three Rivers Conference game.
“In the first half, I can say I was definitely getting frustrated – wasn’t getting to my spot,” Frantz said. “Third quarter I switched the mode, and that was kill time from there.”
The Cavaliers led by five and later by four in the fourth, but the Eagles kept coming. Lehman did its best to limit their efficient 3-point game by not helping and leaving shooters alone, but that meant giving up the lane a few times, a trade Hughes was willing to make for the most part.
Riston Taylor, the Eagles’ 6-4 senior and leading scorer at 20.4, found a driving lane and thundered a two-handed dunk to cut Lehman’s lead to 45-43 with 3:48 left. Austin Stangel tied the score with free throws with 2:47 left.
Lehman worked the clock until Frantz found an avenue to the basket to retake the lead with 1:10 left. But Stangel did the same with 49 seconds left. Frantz and Evan O’Leary had shots to win it in the final seconds, but overtime was always going to be how this one would end.
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The Cavaliers jumped to a 51-47 lead before what felt like disaster struck. Stangel took a charge from Frantz on a fast break as he passed to open teammate under the basket with a 1:20 left. First, it wiped away a basket that would have pushed the lead back to four. Second, it was Frantz’s fifth foul.
“That was stressful,” he said of having to watch from the bench. “I believed in my teammates, and like Brandon says, started praying. God came through for us.”
Troy Christian had some sloppy moments, including this steal by Lehman Catholic’s Troy O’Leary.
Enter junior Jackson Kennedy for the first time to replace Frantz. After Taylor’s 3-point play put the Eagles up by one, Cole Leininger’s layup put the Cavaliers back on top 53-52. Then it was Kennedy’s turn to shoot his third free throw of the season. He made the first one – and his first of the season – for a two-point lead. He missed the second.
The Eagles’ Austen Taylor responded with a baseline drive for a layup to tie the score for the 12th time with 20 seconds remaining.
The Cavaliers planned to take the last shot. But the Eagles Brennan Hochwalt knocked the dribble away from C.J. Olding (10 points). And the Eagles’ Austen Taylor went hard after the loose ball. But Ulbrich was a half-step ahead and drew the foul.
The clock stopped at 3.5 seconds. The whistle blew at 6.8 seconds. Zawadzki immediately let the officials know that there should have been more time left. But the officials weren’t looking at the clock, and there is no replay in high school. After Ulbrich made the go-ahead free throw, an extra 3.3 seconds might have allowed the Eagles to get a closer shot at the end, but the extra time wouldn’t have guaranteed them a winning basket.
Zawadzki, disappointed to lose, took that clock moment and the entire night in stride and looked to the future.
“You need these things as a team so that it helps you bond together,” he said. “You start relying on each other more, and I hope that they start understanding that we got to pay more attention, we got to work harder and just stick together.”
Lehman Catholic’s C.J. Olding scored 10 points and attacks the basket against Troy Christian’s Noah Fecher.
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