SATURDAY, MARCH 18, 2000
The ride was fun while it lasted
By Andy Cole
Sports Writer
TOLEDO -- There's not much out of the ordinary and not much to look at on the route that Calvert's bus took to Toledo twice this week. But, while the Senecas may have needed the movie "Hoosiers" and maybe the occasional tractor-counting contest to keep them entertained on that road, Calvert provided some entertainment of its own when it reached the end of that road at the University of Toledo's Savage Hall.
A 67-61 loss to Fort Jennings ended Calvert's season in the regional finals at 22-3. The 22 wins tie the school record, and it is the furthest the Senecas have ever advanced in the tournament.
"I'm very, very proud of our program and the people in it," said Calvert coach Tony Mass, whose district champion and back-to-back MAL champion Senecas had advanced to within one game of a trip to Columbus with a 58-42 win over Kalida Tuesday.
"I think you saw a lot of heart in our guys tonight in the way we battled, and you have to be proud of them. A big part of what's hurting me about this is that we've got nine seniors and I won't get to be around those guys anymore.
"Fort Jennings has a great team, and I wish coach Von Sossan and his players the very best at the state tournament in Columbus."
The scorebook will forever hold Calvert six points short of its first state tournament appearance, but the final result may have been different if not for an inch or two here or a second or two there.
Just one of those times came when Calvert took possession of the ball to start the second half, trailing 31-30. Tim Brodman launched an alley-oop to Kevin Lucius, who had scored 10 points in the first half, but the timing was just a little off, and that made all the difference. Where a score would have created a momentum shift, the Musketeers were able build a six-point lead before Calvert scored its first points of the second half.
"We just missed that by a little bit, and I think that could have changed things," Mass said. "We were an inch or two off, and it seemed like an omen that things weren't going to exactly work out for us.
"That's something our guys knew coming in. You have to play very good basketball to win at this level. It's the regional finals, and there's not much margin for error."
From a Fort Jennings prospective, it may have been fitting that a game of inches finally went their way. After three trips to the regional, the Musketeers were finally able to hit enough big shots to make the trip to Toledo pay off into a state berth. At a place coach John Von Sossan said "must have seemed like a home court to our guys after these last couple of years," Fort Jennings finally got enough things to roll its way.
"Losing here last year in the finals was very depressing for me," said Muskie guard Kevin Grothause, whose 21 points led all scorers. "We lost to a team who we felt we were better than and we just couldn't make it happen. But I think last year helped toughen our guys up, and that's one of the reasons we were able to do it this time."
It was the last game in a Calvert basketball uniform for Brodman, Lucius, Joe Harvey, Dustyn Risner, Ben Brickner, Nate Keller, Kevin Cahill, Bart Fisher and Robbie Ritzler. After falling behind, the Senecas continued to make short runs, and Brickner's trey followed by a Risner bucket with 2:43 left cut the lead to 58-56. But, like a team that had been there before, Fort Jennings hit big shots and grabbed big rebounds, and Calvert didn't have a comeback for everything.
"We matched them, field goal for field goal and three for three, but they hit the big shots, and that didn't happen for us tonight," Mass said. "They got them when they needed them. They had an answer for every run we made and they the important shots."
And, while the tournament trail didn't exactly end where the Senecas had hoped it would, it's still a road they're glad to have travelled.