Bellevue fends off Columbian in 60-53 win

TIFFIN —The game turned out pretty much exactly how Bellevue coach Ed Rich thought it would.Tiffin Columbian made things interesting late, but a push in the third quarter and some timely shots and offensive rebounds helped the Redmen pull out a big 60-53 Sandusky Bay Conference Lake Division road win Friday."I knew it was going to be a battle. They play freaking hard man… they play hard, they play physical," Rich said. "I thought the referees did an excellent job calling the game because I think they let both teams play physical without it getting out of control."Our game plan was to throw as many different guys on (Logan Gooding) as we could. He's really good and we knew that. We had it in our scouting report that he has scored like 63% of their points. He did a nice job and I think we did a nice job on everyone else. But we played well, and it's a pretty resilient team we have."Even though Gooding dropped in a game-high 22 points for the Tornadoes, they were a tough 22 as the Redmen (5-2, 2-0 SBC Lake) threw bodies at him left and right, making someone else beat them. The supporting cast hit some shots, but not consistently enough to catch the Redmen in the end."We can't be so one-dimensional with Logan," Columbian coach Jac Alexander said. "He's our guy, obviously, but we have to have other guys be ready to step up and make plays. Ultimately, we got out-rebounded by at least 10 rebounds, which is huge."Some of those rebounds came on the offensive end for the Redmen, keeping possessions alive during the fourth quarter when Columbian (3-3, 0-2) made things interesting.Columbian got within 53-51 after a DaShawn Russell layup with 2:16 left, but Bellevue sophomore Elijah Turinsky made a floater in the lane and then splashed a pair of free throws to gain some separations with 19 seconds left in the ballgame.Ike Brown led Bellevue with 16 points."For whatever reason, that's been our struggle this year with turnovers, which irks me, but once we got into the half we ran our stuff pretty well," Rich said. "Ike did really well getting into the paint and doing his thing, Sam got into the paint with his quick feet and did his thing, which helped a lot too."BELLEVUE (5-2, 3-0) Sam Bollinger 5-0-10, Ike Brown 6-3-16, JJ Vogel 2-3-9, Reid Claus 4-1-12, Caden Cramer 1-2-4, Owen Hancock 1-0-2, Elijah Turinsky 2-3-7. TOTALS 21 12-16 60 COLUMBIAN (3-3, 0-2) Owen Hickey 0-4-4, Nolan Miller 1-0-3, Blake Miller 2-0-6, Logan Gooding 9-0-22, DaShawn Russell 4-1-9, Blake Tucker 4-1-9, Parker Nye 0-0-0. TOTALS 20 6-11 53Bellevue 14 12 19 15 – 60 Columbian 16 7 17 13 – 53Three-point goals: Bellevue 6 (Claus 3, Vogel 2, Brown); Columbian 7 (Gooding 4, B. Miller 2, N. Miller)