The Arrows gave themselves the opportunity with a 57-48 grind-it-out victory over Tri-Village in the region semifinals. They will play for a trip to state at 7 p.m. Saturday against Versailles (15-11) back at Trent Arena. Last year the Arrows lost to Canal Winchester Harvest Prep in the region final.
“They want this to end at UD Arena,” Arrows coach Jake Turner said.
To keep the dream alive, the Arrows (23-3) had to ignore two distractions. And they needed a big bucket from Shrout to open their lead in the fourth quarter and finally put Tri-Village away.
Last Thursday the Arrows lost starting guard and second-leading scorer Isaac Blankenship for the season to a freak-accident leg injury. On Wednesday, Shrout learned that he is a finalist for Ohio’s Mr. Basketball award. Shrout’s dad woke him from a nap after school to tell him.
“It’s definitely something I had on my bucket list wanting to be a finalist for that,” Shrout said. “But today was about our team. Today was about coming in here and handling business.”
Turner had the same attitude.
“I gave him a little pat on the back before we left, and I said, ‘Congrats. We’ll talk later about it,’” Turner said. “He deserves everything he gets.”
To advance the Arrows had to get the better of the defensive strategies. Tri-Village (25-2) played a diamond-and-one on Shrout with Tanner Printz doing the dirty work. The Arrows inserted Case Roell into the starting lineup for Blankenship to face guard Trey Sagester, the Patriots’ leading scorer who scored 28 points in the district final. Roell held Sagester to 12 points on 11 shots.
When Blankenship went down, Shrout knew the job to control Sagester would be Roell’s.
“Everybody’s mind was scrambling,” Shrout said. “Who are we going to put on Trey? What are we going to do? What are we going to do? I looked over at Case, and I said, ‘I believe in you.’ And he goes, ‘I know I can do it.’ And he did an amazing job.”
Printz kept Shrout from scoring for most of the game, but as Shrout always does he found ways to impact the game on defense and with seven rebounds and five assists. He scored 11 of his 19 points in the second half, made five of the eight shots he was able get and made all seven of his free-throw attempts. Shrout’s teammates, of course, picked up the scoring slack. Logan Hawley scored 12 inside and Brody Morton scored 11.
If Shrout’s bucket list includes make an impossible shot to help his team win a region semifinal, he can check that one off, too.
Leading 41-39, Shrout got a rare opening off a screen, and it was time to shoot a long three. Braden Keating, now guarding Shrout because Printz had four fouls, fought through the screen and bumped Shrout for a foul.
Shrout, of course, sought the contact, let the shot go while turning sideways, and it went in with 2:27 left. He turned to the Shawnee fans, raised his arms and cheered them on. He added the free throw for a four-point play, a 45-39 lead and enough cushion to make free throws stand up to two more Keating 3-pointers.
“God’s grace just giving me the ability to be able to hit that shot,” Shrout said. “I don’t even think I was looking at the rim. I think I was looking for the contact, and I got the contact, threw it up there, prayed and it went in. That was a big separator for us.”
Roell’s opinion: “Really bad shot, but he’s a really good player.”
Needing to handle the ball well in the final two minutes, Turner inserted freshman guard Knox Mills into the game. Mills didn’t commit a turnover and made five of six free throws down the stretch.
“I believe in him, I trust him,” Turner said. “He’s made big shots every time we’ve been in a big game. We call him Big Shot Knox.”
The Arrows were efficient shot-makers after missing some early open ones to fall behind 25-13. They finished at 45.7% from the field, but they made 10 of 14 shots, including four of six from three-point range, in the second half. And they made 18 of 20 free throws.
Patriots coach Josh Sagester, who didn’t use the diamond-and-one when his team lost to Shawnee by 14 on February 16, also wanted to play from the lead and keep the pace slow. He used some four-corners offense in the second quarter, and Printz was able to attack the basket and score six of his 15 points.
“We want to spread the floor, we wanted to be patient with the basketball, and we knew that if we got in an up-and-down transition game, there was a chance that they could score us out of the game,” Sagester said. “But to their credit, they were able to make enough shots.”
Those shots included an 8-0 run in the final 21 seconds of the half that sliced Tri-Village’s lead to 25-21 and changed the feel of the game. Brody Morton started it with a 3-pointer, Shrout made two free throws after Sagester was hit with a technical foul and Brayden Robinette made a 3-pointer at the buzzer. And the stage was set for the second half.
“We want to win one more and get to the final four,” Turner said. “And then anything can happen.”
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