Arcadia, Arlington advance to district final

LIMA-- Arlington and Arcadia each punched their tickets for Saturday's district finals in a doubleheader at Lima Senior that featured four Blanchard Valley Conference schools Arlington shut the door on McComb 49-27 in the first game Thursday, and in the night cap, second-seeded Arcadia stopped third-seeded Pandora-Gilboa's postseason run by defeating it 52-40. Arcadia will face top-seeded Delphos St. John's on Saturday at Elida, with tip off at 7 p.m., while Arlington will face fourth seeded Greenwich South Central Saturday, back at Lima Senior with a tipoff of 7PM. Arcadia (16-8) was down 34-29 by the end of the third quarter. Isaac Stoner got the Redskins fourth-quarter rally going when he capitalized on a steal from Grady Bronston and scored a basket. As the Rockets were racing down the court, Stoner stole the ball from Jack Buell and ran it in for a bucket. Slicing P-G's lead down to one point, 34-33 within a minute of the quarter starting, the Rockets called a timeout. Though Chase Meyer made a bucket, Bronston responded with one of his own and tied it 36-36. "Our kids flipped the script and we were able to go score and defend," Arcadia coach Jordan Benson said. "Our kids guarded their tails off in the fourth quarter." Lamarion Tucker drilled a triple from the middle which broke the tie, and put the Redskins in the lead for the first time. From there, Arcadia just continued to add. Bronston had a bucket, making it 43-38. Then, P-G responded with a Camden Verhoff bucket, making it 43-40. It was the last time that P-G was heard from. "Things just fell apart and their pressure got us," P-G coach Mike Lee said. "It was much more effective and intense, along with turnovers that allowed the momentum to be flipped. That was key, we had a five point lead going into the fourth and ultimately, you can't turnover the ball that many times and have breakdowns on defense." P-G had 10 turnovers in the second half, 18 total, vs, Arcadia, which had 10 in the game. Bronston went on an eight point run in two trips to the free throw line and knocked down flour points, before making two back–to-back buckets. Stoner closed out the game with a trip to the charity stripe and made his pair. "I am extremely proud of Grady because we told him on the bench that he needed to get involved," Benson said. "He wheeled us into the very end." The game didn't start that way however. The Redskins raced out to a six-point lead before Adam Buell went to the free throw line and split his shots, all within a minute of the game starting. P-G dominated the quarter, going on a 11-1 run to make it 12-7. By the end of the first half, it was 21-16, and it wasn't until four minutes remained in the third quarter that Arcadia started closing the gap. Stoner did a spin move away from Rocket defenders to bring the deficit to 29-26. Arcadia's top shooter was Stoner with 22 points, followed by Bronston with 17 points. For P-G, its leader was Verhoff with 11, followed by Chase Meyer with 10. In the first game, Arlington (20-3) raced out to a nine-point lead over McComb (9-15) before Casen Stateler had an answer, and the Red Devils ended the quarter up 9-3. "We knew coming into the game that we beat them in January by 27 points, and we knew it was a league team and they would change things up," Arlington coach Jason Vermillion said. "Our guys manufactured a win tonight because they stayed on the course defensively and made some adjustments to overcome our inefficiencies behind the arc." Out of the 11 triples attempted, the Red Devils only made two. The Panthers kept pace with the Red Devils in the second quarter, and only kept it to a five-point difference before Aiden Hendren floated a basket with 42.8 seconds left, and cut the lead down 18-15. "We gave them a good run for three quarters," McComb coach Glenn Miehls said. "It got away from us in the fourth quarter. They are a great team and there is a reason why they are that good. I'm proud of our guys. You have to make choices and we wanted to limit their insides so we gave up some outside shots. We kept it close because of that." Calvin Willow made a late trip to the free throw line but split his pair, making it 19-15 heading into the second half. He was 6-of-8 from the charity stripe. The point of no return though came in the fourth. Already up by 10 points, 31-21, Arlington made three trips to the charity stripe within the first minute and six seconds of the quarter starting, and added six points on by Willow going four-for-four and Ayden Cavinee making his pair. From there, McComb's defense had woken up, but just too little too late. Arlington went on a 20-6 run during that quarter and once the Panthers called a timeout, it was 2:17 remaining and the score 44-25. The leading scorer in that game was Willow with 22 points, and on the Panthers side, Luke Kern got 12 points. PANDORA-GILBOA (10-13) Cory Gerten 2-4-9, Camden Verhoff 5-1-11, Chase Meyer 4-2-10, Matthew Benroth 1-0-3, Jack Buell 3-0-6 TOTALS: 15-8-40 ARCADIA (16-8) Issac Stoner 8-5-22, Owen Green 1-1-3, Grady Bronston 5-6-17, Tripp Brubaker 1-0-2, Lamarion Tucker 1-1-5, Blayne Colman 1-1-3 TOTALS: 18-13-52 Pandora Gilboa 12 9 13 6 –40 Arcadia 7 9 13 23 –52 Three-point goals: Pandora-Gilboa 2 (Gerten, Benroth); Arcadia 3 (Stoner, Bronston,Tucker) ARLINGTON (20-3) Lukas Mcllroy 1-0-2, Hunter Rausch 2-0-5, Trenton Heacock 3-3-9, Payne Steggan 1-0-2, Ayden Cavinee 3-2-9, Calvin Willow 8-6-22 TOTALS: 18-11-49 MCCOMB (9-15) Casen Stateler 1-2-5, Luke Kern 6-0-12, Aiden Hendren 1-0-2, Madden Halker 3-0-8 TOTALS: 11-2-27 Arlington 9 10 10 20 –49 McComb 3 12 6 6 –27