By Randy Wilker
Sports Correspondent
NEW BREMEN — Going into Saturday afternoon’s games it came down to two games to decide the MAC title.
The one outside of New Bremen’s control went its way. The Cardinals grabbed control of their own destiny after that.

It took six free throws from Cardinal senior Andy Timmerman in the last two minutes to put the Cardinals over the top and defeat the Fort Recovery Indians 50-47 giving the Cardinals a piece of the title.
New Bremen got a piece of the three-way tie by beating Delphos St. John’s and the Indians this week. It’s New Bremen’s first boys basketball title in the MAC  since the 2005-2006 season.
“I didn’t think there was a snowballs chance in you-know--where on Monday (of winning the MAC title. I just wanted to play,” Cardinals head coach Mike Ernst said. “It was two good teams and I just wanted to see if we could win two games to get ready for the tournament. We didn’t take the easy way and three very deserving teams, in my opinion, are league champions and now we will slug it out again in the tournament.”
While New Bremen faced Fort Recovery, Coldwater was helping the Cardinals by whitewashing the the Delphos St. John’s Blue Jays, 44-23.
The Cardinals denied Greg Kahlig and the Indians the outright title by coming back in the final period.
Going into the fourth quarter Fort Recovery held a slim 36-35 lead and they extended that to 38-35 in the first minute with a basket from Greg Kahlig. New Bremen answered with a bomb from Clay Heitkamp with 6:43 left, but Wade Gelhaus hit a jumper but failed on the free throw.
Following an Indian steal, Kahlig nailed a bomb causing Ernst to call timeout. After the timeout, the Cardinals began hitting from the line. Caleb Williams sank a pair of free throws to close the deficit to 43-40 with 4:12 left. After an Indian timeout, Kahlig answered with a basket and a pair of free throws to give Fort Recovery a 47-42 lead with three minutes left.
That turned out to be the final points Fort Recovery would score. Williams and Timmerman hit two free throws each to make the score 47-46 with two minutes left.
“I don’t think the game went anything like we wanted it to go,” Ernst said. “I never thought we had control of the game. I never felt until the final 30 seconds that we ever got control. They controlled the tempo and everything. How we hung in the game with foul trouble and everything else. I have no idea.”
A strange occurrence happened with two minutes left. After Timmerman sank a free throw, the fire alarm went off. After about a five minute delay, Timmerman sank the second toss.
“I thought it was just getting to the point where it would be a problem getting started again,” Ernst said of the fire alarm going off. “I’m glad it didn’t last too long and maybe we caught our breath a little bit.”
New Bremen stole a pass by the Indians and called a timeout with 1:54 left. The turnover resulted without a core and Fort Recovery called a timeout with 1:28 left. New Bremen regained possession and Timmerman was fouled with 1:10 left sinking both tosses and again with 29 seconds left as Timmerman sank one of two to give the Cardinals a 49-47 lead. Dean McFarlin completed the victory by stealing an Indian pass with eight seconds left and Timmerman sank the final free throw.
“Dean McFarlin hasn’t played much but he made a big defensive play toward the end of the game,” Ernst said. “We talked to Andy at halftime that he has to be careful because we can’t afford to lose him. He is not our leading scorer and he doesn’t do a lot of things that people notice but he is our leader and free throw shooter down the stretch so we can’t lose him.”
Kahlig was the leading scorer for Fort Recovery with 30 points and seven rebounds.
“I think we made him take tough shots,” Ernst said. “We had talked all week that he is going to make tough shots, but let’s make him take the tough shots and don’t let him make the easy ones.”
New Bremen couldn’t get off to a fast start as the Indians jumped out to an 11-4 lead after the first quarter. In the second quarter the Cardinals began to chip away at the deficit and cut the Indian lead to 25-21 lead at halftime and almost caught the Indians after three quarters trailing 36-35.
New Bremen had eight seniors who played their final game Saturday afternoon. Those are starters Marcus Bergman, Andy Timmerman, Clay Heitkamp, Caleb Williams, Justin Eilerman and recently injured Spencer Rohr. The non starters are Logan Bronkema and Dean McFarlin.
“The seniors are a great group of kids,” Ernst said. “They battle their ass off and it hasn’t always been easy for them, but they keep battling and they are such and I think that is what carries them through.”
The Indians end the regular season at 17-3 and 7-2, while the Cardinals end at 17-3 and 7-2. The Cardinals have a seed and will face the winner of the Marion Local and Minster game next Friday.
New Bremen won Sunday’s game against Botkins, 47-33.