WILLARD — He became the program’s career scoring king, but Logan Niswander didn’t want to talk about individual accomplishments Tuesday evening.
The Lucas senior was only interested in the team.
Niswander scored a game-high 25 points and the top-seeded Cubs survived a scare with a 72-61 overtime win over No. 4 Sandusky St. Mary in the Division IV district semifinals at Willard’s Robert L. Haas Gymnasium.
Lucas (24-1) will take on South Central for the district championship at 7 p.m. Friday in Willard. The second-seeded Trojans beat Firelands Conference rival Norwalk St. Paul in Tuesday’s late game.
Niswander knocked down four free throws in the final 30 seconds to pass Elijah Foss, who scored 1,308 points from 1996 to 2000. Niswander now has 1,310 points — not that he’s counting.
“It’s cool, but (teammate) Riley (Gossum) is going to break it next year,” Niswander said. “The record is nice, but we didn’t really close out that game.
“It would have been better if we had won by 20 or 30.”
It looked like the Cubs were well on their way to another lopsided win after Ethan Sauder scored five quick points to start the third quarter, spotting Lucas to a 37-22 lead. SMCC refused to go quietly, however, outscoring Lucas 18-3 the rest of the period to tie it at 40-40 going to the fourth.
“All the credit in the world goes to St. Mary’s. They were down 12 at the half and could have easily given up,” Lucas coach Taylor Iceman said. “I think we might have thought that is what they were going to do, but they came back and kept battling.
“Our kids withstood that and kept their composure and we were able to survive and advance.”
The Panthers (16-9) took their first lead of the night on a Nate Roesch layup early in the fourth, setting the stage for a wild final eight minutes. Niswander’s conventional three-point play with 4:04 left in regulation gave the Cubs a 50-44 lead, but the Panthers closed on a 12-6 run and forced overtime when Miles Bruno scored on a layup with five seconds left.
Gossum knocked down a 3-pointer just seven seconds into the four-minute extra session to give the Cubs a 59-56 lead and Lucas would never trail again. Sauder’s traditional three-point play with 2:55 remaining gave Lucas a 62-57 lead. The Cubs drained 10 of 14 free throws in the final two minutes to seal it.
Sauder backed Niswander with 19 points. Gossum added 18.
“I’ve talked a lot this year about Riley and Logan scoring, but I’m telling you Ethan Sauder is an offensive weapon,” Iceman said. “You don’t see it a lot and he doesn’t have to do it a lot, but we are a three-headed monster offensively.
“Sometimes he doesn’t look for his shot as much as he needs to, but he is a capable scorer.”
Roesch led five SMCC players in double figures with 17 points. Myles Bruno and Vinny Will had 11 points apiece, while Cole Kromer and Dylan Christian each had 10.
