Grant Kremer scores two of his 15 points to help lead Marion Local to a 57-43 victory. (Press Pros Feature Photos by Logan Howard)
Kale Aherns and Brennan Hess lead a stout defensive effort and Ahrens scores 17 points to give the Flyers a second shot at a state championship. And Tri-Village’s Trey Sagester scores 25 points in his final game.
Vandalia, OH – Marion Local brought its brawn and its brains, its length and its shot-making, its depth and its teamwork, to Friday night’s regional final between the top two Division VI teams in Ohio.
Most of all, the No. 1 and once-beaten Flyers brought an important intangible to complement their measurables. A determined will to win.
The ‘Edge’ proudly sponsors the Midwest Athletic Conference on Press Pros Magazine.com.
That will made Kale Ahrens run through and around a hundred screens designed to create shooting space for Tri-Village star Trey Sagester. That will made Brennan Hess not back down from a low-post push-and-shove with Tri-Village big man Dominic Black. That will gave confidence to unlikely shooters to make 3-pointers.
Veteran columnist Jeff Gilbert writes Ohio State football and basketball and OHSAA sports for Press Pros Magazine.com. Follow on X @jw_gilbert
And in a steady fashion, with their will to win grinding and grinding, the Flyers pulled away and pulled away until the No. 2 and previously unbeaten Patriots couldn’t pull back. And so a game that was tight for so long, and felt like a coin flip going in, evolved into a 57-43 Marion Local victory.
“It’s awesome – best feeling in the world,” Flyers senior leader Brayden Mescher said. “Hopefully we can avenge ourselves from last year.”
That would be their Division VI championship game loss to Monroe Central. The Flyers’ next step toward a hoped-for first state championship since the program’s third one in 2018, is a matchup against Van Wert Lincolnview (22-5) in the state semifinals at 8 p.m. Friday at the Nutter Center. The championship game will be played at 7:30 Saturday at UD Arena.
The Flyers (25-1) have won 15 straight and are returning to state with returning starters Mescher, Grant Kremer and Ahrens and new starters Hess and Luke Everman. All five, plus backups Oliver Huelsman and Isaac Moeller, played key roles in big moments and less-noticed moments to beat Tri-Village for the first time in five tries.
EB Real Estate, Darke County’s sales leader, proudly sponsors the best area sports on Press Pros Magazine.
The last two meetings were in the 2014 and 2015 regionals. After the second one, the Patriots completed a 30-0 season with their only state championship.
“This is a pretty big monkey to get off our back beating Tri-Village because they’re a tremendous program,” Marion coach Kurt Goettemoeller said. “It feels really good, but we have a ton of respect for them.”
Tri-Village’s Trey Sagester found the going rough at times on his way to 25 points.
The biggest respect card was paid to Tri-Village senior Trey Sagester, the reigning Division VI state player of the year and a Mr. Basketball finalist. Ahrens, a rangy 6-foot-3 athlete, drew the assignment he always does of guarding the other team’s best player.
The only other player he’s faced with the same scoring ability was Delphos St. John’s star Cam Elwer, another Mr. Basketball finalist. Sagester hit is average with 25 points, but Ahrens didn’t let him get 40 and he made Sagester earn most of those points the hard way.
“They’re just running him off screen after screen after screen, and he’s a tired kid I can assure you,” Goettemoeller said. “He’s just a springy athlete for us that just makes play after play after play.”
Goettemoeller said the plan was to make Sagester go to the basket and not shoot threes. For the most part it worked except for the few times Ahrens needed help and didn’t get it. That’s when Sagester found some open lanes on the left side for right-hand finishes or the rare open 3-point shot, of which he made four including one from beyond 30 feet.
Athletes In Action is proud to be a presenting sponsor of area basketball on Press Pros Magazine.com. Call now for camp opportunities for your team in summer, 2026.
“They didn’t come easy, but he still got 25 in a regional final of our 43,” Tri-Village coach Josh Sagester said. “What we’ve been doing is we’ve had contributions across the board, and tonight we struggled to get some contributions, in my opinion, because of the positional length and the physicality.”
The other important defensive assignment belonged to Marion’s 6-5 sophomore Brennan Hess against Tri-Village’s 6-5 junior post Dominic Black. Hess, with some relief help from Huelsman, held Black to four points, all coming in the first quarter.
Kale Ahrens found time and space to score 17 points on a night when he was tasked with guarding Trey Sagester.
“We thought that was the X factor in the game,” Goettemoeller said. “We had some answers in most of the spots, but we didn’t really have a great answer inside. But he was the answer. He just fought his butt off.”
During football season Hess plays quarterback. Black is an offensive tackle and a Division I football prospect.
“Brennan played like a beast tonight,” Mescher said. “He didn’t play like a quarterback. He played like a linebacker.”
Marion created an X factor on offense from the 3-poiont line. Five players made seven 3-pointers. While Kremer’s three were normal for him, the ones by Ahrens and Huelsman were not.
Huelsman made his in the first quarter. Ahrens’ came a critical juncture in the second quarter. After five ties, including 12-12 at the end of the first quarter, the Patriots led 21-17 when Mescher went to the bench with his third foul with 4:11 left in the half.
Ever-Green Lawn and Landscaping supports Ohio State sports on Press Pros.
Kremer sparked a 10-2 run to close the half with a driving layup through traffic and a 3-pointer. But on that 3-pointer Black was called for a foul under the basket. The kept the ball with the Flyers, and Ahrens made a 3-pointer to complete a six-point possession and put the Flyers up 23-21 on their way to a 27-23 halftime lead.
“That just shows our depth,” Mescher said. “I come out and we can put anyone in and they just do their job. People know their role on the team. I have confidence in them, huge confidence.”
Marion Local’s Brennan Hess made his presence felt on defense against Dominic Black, holding him to four points.
Having the depth to cover that many minutes without Mescher, the obvious team leader on the floor, was important to Goettemoeller.
“If you’re going to win and get to a state tournament, you have to survive a game like we did against New Bremen,” he said of a two-point win in the first round. “And you also have to have your bench kids step up and make plays because it’s not always going to go exactly how you want it to go.”
Ahrens stepped up as a starter, able to focus on offense while directing most of his attention on Sagester. Ahrens attacked the basket to score a team-high 17 points and make 8 of 13 free throws. Kremer added 15 and Mescher 11.
“Nobody cares about getting their’s,” Ahrens said. “Somebody on our team shoots the ball, that’s a great shot for us every time. We just get back, play defense and don’t even worry about the shot.”
Minster Bank proudly sponsors the best in area sports coverage on Press Pros Magazine.com.
For Sagester, Tri-Village’s only loss wasn’t caused by a single factor. In addition to Marion’s physical advantages in size and physicality, he began his postgame breakdown with two thoughts.
“One, they made some timely perimeter shots,” he said. “They had some kids that made a few shots that they haven’t made all year. And No. 2, my big kid didn’t go the free-throw line one time. Lot of contact in the paint today, and, I felt like, on Dom. I’m not saying there wasn’t contact on both sides, but then my point guard [Griffin Richards] gets three fouls in the first half. And when he picks up a fourth early in the third, that was a complexion changer for us because he does a lot of things for us out front.”
Marion Local’s Brayden Mescher wrestles a rebound away from Tri-Village’s Trey Sagester.
Marion’s physical advantages, the shots everyone was making, their defense and their determination led to a 40-30 lead entering the fourth quarter. Sagester kept it under 10 until the final two minutes when the Flyers played keep away, made some free throws and the Patriots scored only three points in the final three-plus minutes.
“They’ve got length at all positions, and I think that’s a difficult thing in Division VI basketball,” Sagester said. “If Division III plays Division IV, the positional length matches a little bit. But when you’re playing small school basketball … they’ve got really good length.”
Trey Sagester’s lengthy career as a four-year starter ends with him as a 2,000-point scorer.
“I’m blessed for everything that this four years gave me, and to go out like this … it sucks,” he said. “But when I reflect, I’m very thankful for everything that happened in those four years.”
Josh Sagester felt the disappointment of the loss and not getting to share a state tournament experience with his son and his son’s teammates.
“It’s a tough way to go out, but one game doesn’t make a season, one game doesn’t make a career,” Josh Sagester said. “And if I could have crystal balled and said he was going to be able to do what he did as an individual and as a teammate, I’d have taken that every time. And if you can take that, it’s a pretty proud way to walk down the hallway to the bus.”
Precision Strip, in Minster, Ohio, is proud to be the presenting sponsor of the OHSAA state finals on Press Pros Magazine.com.