By Drew Terhall

Dailyadvocate.com

NEW MADISON — For the second straight season, it came down to Tri-Village and Preble Shawnee for the boys basketball WOAC outright title. The Patriots, the one seed in the Division III Southwest sectional, battle tough against the Arrows, the third seed.

The Patriots couldn’t get the home win as the Arrows claimed the WOAC championship with a 49-35 win at the PAC.

Head coach Josh Sagester said the Arrows came out and played well. They had their role players step up in key situations and didn’t allow the Patriots to grab a lead during the game.

“Offensively, we didn’t shoot it well tonight. We knew we had to make some shots. I don’t know that we got some really good ones. Credit to them (Preble Shawnee). They came out and hit four straight threes to start the game and we couldn’t get it past five pretty much all night long,” Sagester said.

After Tri-Village took an early 2-0 lead, Preble Shawnee drained four straight threes and held onto the lead the rest of the time.

It was a rough first quarter as the Patriots were down 20-9. They couldn’t get into a rhythm offensively and weren’t consistent on defense.

That started to change in the second quarter. Tri-Village came out and went on a 5-0 run. They started to get comfortable in a physical game.

Tri-Village closed the gap in the second quarter, but couldn’t quite do enough to get a lead. Preble Shawnee led 25-20 at halftime.

Preble Shawnee made it their mission to not let Tri-Village’s leading scorer sophomore Trey Sagester take over the game. Much like senior Tanner Printz was always on Preble Shawnee’s leading scorer senior Mason Shrout, Trey Sagester always had a Preble Shawnee defender on his hip.

Trey only had four points in the second half of the game. The offense as a whole couldn’t into a rhythm and get shots to fall in. Sagester said overall, they couldn’t get past the hump in the game.

Preble Shawnee held serve in the third quarter. The Patriots continued to battle well into the fourth quarter and were still hanging around. One run could give them a chance to grab a lead.

But as the game went late into the fourth quarter, the Arrows started to hit threes again and get contributions from many different players offensively.

Sagester said while his team played well, the lack of big game experience on the team showed. Preble Shawnee displayed that experience late in the game while Tri-Village was gaining that experience.

“I thought our kids played really hard tonight. They battled. To their credit, they made some timely shots and they made some shots out of the gate. In this environment, it’s not easy to do,” Sagester said. “We fought. We gave our-self a chance especially there in the early fourth. We just couldn’t make that big play to get over that hump.”

Only four players scored for Tri-Village. Trey Sagester led with 13 points and Printz had 12 points. Senior Braden Keating had eight points and sophomore Noah Finkbine had two points.

Printz held Shrout to 14 points and zero points in the fourth quarter. Shourt averages 24.8 points a game.It’s his second lowest scoring total on the season.

Tri-Village is 19-2 on the season with a 10-1 WOAC record and finish as the WOAC runner-ups. Sagester said right now, they have to learn from this game and move on with the tournament coming up.

“We don’t have a lot of time to hang our heads. We got to learn from this and hopefully we get an opportunity to see them down the road,” Sagester said.

Tri-Village will end the regular season with a home game against Fort Recovery on Feb. 17 at 7:30 p.m. They will then play their first tournament game in the OHSAA Division III Boys Basketball Southwest sectional on Feb. 20 at 8 p.m. at Northmont High School. As the one seed, they will take on the 20th seed Milton Union.

Contact Daily Advocate sports editor Drew Terhall at [email protected]