By Randy Wilker
Sports Correspondent
COLDWATER — The New Bremen Cardinals got the revenge that they wanted Friday evening in the second game of the Division IV sectional championship at Coldwater. The Cardinals used the high-low offense almost to perfection in the first half, but still had to hold on to defeat the Marion Local Flyers 47-37.

“We wanted to get it in there because that is our bread and butter,” Cardinals head coach Mike Ernst said. “We wanted to make sure those guys got some touches and we got some opportunities. In the first half it worked pretty well.”
In the first quarter it was a battle. New Bremen was able to get the ball inside for the most part to Caleb Williams and Justin Eilerman as they combined to score the first 10 Cardinal points. The Flyers were able to get the ball inside also as Jesse Winner scored the first six points, but they also drained the ball from the outside as Brian Heitkamp drained a three with 3:43 left to give Marion Local a 9-8 lead. Following a pair of layups expanded the lead to 13-10, Josh Berning turned a steal into a basket for a 15-10 lead with 1:26 left. The rest of the quarter belonged to the Cardinals as they went on a 5-0 run to tied the game and Clay Heitkamp hit a three with 22 seconds left to give New Bremen an 18-15 lead after one quarter.
“In the first half we started taking the first shot we saw,” Flyers head coach Keith Westrick said. “The first quarter went fairly well. In the second quarter we went on a long drought mainly because we took the first shot that availed itself to us. We were working so hard to get shots and I didn’t think their three-quarter trap should have hurt us as much as it did, but it did. I thought it might be a benefit because sometimes that gets us moving and we get some shots, but we never got behind their press. We broke it a couple times, but we never got behind it.”
In the second quarter it was all New Bremen. Heitkamp began the scoring with a three-point play and Eilerman added a layup off a steal. Eilerman added a pair of free throws before Heitkamp hit another three-point play to increase the lead to 28-15 with five minutes left.
Following a Flyer timeout, Eilerman hit another layup before Jared Prenger scored the only point for Marion Local with a free throw with two minutes left. Eilerman scored the final three points to give New Bremen a 33-16 lead at halftime.
“We looked at tape of the first game and noticed we were not looking at reads right,” Ernst said. “Tonight we did a lot better job of looking at the reads and getting the ball to the right places.”
“In the second half they took us out of almost everything we were trying to do,” Ernst said. “We couldn’t get a shot at the basket. We quit attacking a little bit and their defense took over the game in the third quarter and gave us a lot of problems.”
It didn’t take long for the Flyers to get back into the game in the third quarter. Adam Schulze got the scoring going with three treys, while Eilerman could only hit a layup causing Ernst to call timeout with 4:25 left.
“The one thing you have to say about these guys,” Westrick said. “Is they were down but they never quit. They battled back. We got down today against a very good team and got themselves back in the game. If we sink a couple of those layups we might cause them to sweat a little bit.”
With 2:57 left Troy Williams hit one of two free throws, but Travis Winner converted a turnover into a basket and Jarren Griesdorn hit a three at the buzzer to close the score to 36-30 after three quarters.
Heitkamp opened the Cardinal fourth quarter scoring with a layup, but Griesdorn came back and turned a steal into a three with 6:30 left to make the score 38-33. New Bremen started to pull the ball out after a layup by Eilerman, but another steal led to a layup by Schulze to close the score 40-35 with 3:53 left. New Bremen concluded the scoring with seven out of nine free throws down the stretch for the 47-37 victory.
“We talked before the game started,” Westrich said. “We may have to start taking 10 to 12 foot pull-ups as opposed to taking it down to the block. When you attack a certain way all year long you are trained to take that power shot. In the third quarter we got some reversals to the high post and got some good kick out shots.”
Eilerman led the Cardinals in scoring with 17 points and eight rebounds and Heitkamp had 14 points and seven points, while Schulze had 11 points for the Flyers.
Marion Local ends its season at 12-9, while the Cardinals, 18-3, will play Ft. Jennings in the second game of the Division IV District tournament at Wapakoneta on Tuesday. Ft. Jennings defeated Delphos St. John’s 39-34.