BELLEVUE — Three stops and three buckets.
It’s Mansfield Senior’s mantra and it served the Tygers well again Friday night.
Fifth-seeded Senior High got stops and buckets in bunches during the final three-and-a-half minutes to escape with a 57-48 win over No. 4 Bellevue in a Division II sectional championship game.
“In practice we put a big emphasis on getting three stops and three buckets,” said Senior High’s Kyevi Roane, who as usual was in the middle of things at both ends of the floor.
“We do it over and over and over again until we get it right and it shows out here on the floor.”
Bellevue (17-6) trailed 32-24 to open the fourth quarter, but outscored the Tygers (18-6) 15-8 during the first four-plus minutes of the period. Senior High was left clinging to a precarious 40-39 edge after a layup by Bellevue’s Jackson Martin with 3:30 left.
That’s when Roane and sophomore D.J. Corbin took over.
Corbin scored off a Rashad Reed Jr. assist and Roane followed with a layup of his own 30 seconds later to give the Tygers some breathing room. Another Corbin layup, this time off a Ja’Ontay O’Bryant assist, and another Roane layup pushed Senior High’s bulge to 48-39 with 1:39 remaining.
“We dug deep and got a few stops. We have been putting the emphasis on stops,” Senior High coach Marquis Sykes said. “Our guys were able to get enough stops and enough rebounds and made enough free throws down the stretch to close the game out.”
Bellevue cut Mansfield Senior’s advantage to 50-42 on a Ashton Martin 3-pointer with 55 second left, but Corbin connected on two free throws to make it 52-42 with 46 seconds showing.
Another Jackson Martin layup with 39 seconds remaining gave Bellevue a brief glimmer of hope, but the Tygers sealed it when Roane sank the first of two free throws with 35.1 seconds to play. He misfired on the second but Duke Reese secured the offensive rebound and got the ball back to Roane, who scored on a layup with 29 seconds left for a 55-44 advantage.
“They killed us on the glass and got to the rack, things they’re really good at,” said Bellevue coach Ed Rich, a 1998 Bellevue grad who coached four seasons at Galion from 2011 to 2015 before returning to his alma mater.
“I was thinking if we could just get the lead in the fourth quarter maybe things would have been different. We needed one more bucket and just didn’t get it. That’s a credit to them. They are good.”
While the Tygers put it away late, the game was won in the second quarter. Senior High held Bellevue scoreless during the period, turning a 12-10 deficit into a 23-12 halftime advantage.
It was the second shutout in three quarters for Mansfield Senior. The Tygers blanked Ontario in the fourth quarter of Tuesday’s sectional semifinal victory.
Senior High actually trailed 12-7 late in the first quarter before Corbin drained a 3-pointer as time expired. Including Corbin’s late trey, Senior High cobbled together a 17-0 run that bridged the first, second and third quarters.
“Tonight I actually could feel it,” Sykes said of his team’s second-quarter defensive intensity. “That was really the difference in the game, how we played in the second quarter.”
Roane led the Tygers with 22 points and 10 rebounds as Senior High won the board battle 35-26. Corbin, who was inserted into the starting lineup after Karion Lindsay left the team for undisclosed reasons, had 13 points. Duke Reese added seven points and nine boards.
“The coaches told me to come in and be aggressive,” said Corbin, a physical, 6-foot sophomore. “Sometimes I’m nervous, but I know I’ve got to step up for my team.”
Ashton Martin led Bellevue with 13 points. Cooper Moyer and Joel Ray scored eight points apiece while Jackson Martin added seven.
The 17 regular-season wins for Bellevue were the most since the 1997-98 season, Rich’s final year as a player.
“We have five seniors and we won five games when they were freshmen,” Rich said. “We went from five wins, to 11 when they were sophomore to 16 when they were juniors and 17 this year. I’m proud of what they were able to accomplish.
“We’re disappointed with the loss, but not with the effort. They played their butts off.”
Mansfield Senior will play top-seeded Shelby in the early game of a district semifinal doubleheader at Ontario at 6 p.m. March 7. The Whippets beat No. 11 Vermilion 76-40 on Friday.
Shelby beat Senior High 73-55 at Pete Henry Gym in late-January.
“If we play how we did tonight and against Ontario, I think we can do pretty good against Shelby,” O’Bryant said. “I think it will be a closer game.”