Indian Lake earns first district berth with win over WL-Salem in sectional final
As a 12 seed in the Division III sectional tournament, Indian Lake’s boys basketball team was not expected by many to do much this postseason.
Instead, a gritty and determined Laker squad delivered a storybook performance by earning the program’s first district appearance with a 55-37 win over West Liberty-Salem on Saturday in a sectional final at Butler High School.
“We are really excited, the whole community is,” said IL head coach Zach Overturf. “It was great to see so many people come out and celebrate with us.”
Indian Lake skipped its usual postgame meal and drove back to the high school where they ordered pizza and held a celebration cutting down the nets on their home court.
The Lakers (14-11) now take on state-ranked Cincinnati Taft, which was 10th in the final Division III state poll, Saturday in a district semifinal at Northmont High School.The start time has not been announced.
“The message this week is we are not even supposed to be here,” said Overturf. “We’re a 12 seed that won the sectional. Now, we face a really good Taft team. We’ll drill this week, go down Saturday, compete and see what happens.”
WL-Salem finishes the season with a respectable record of 15-9, but was hoping for a much different ending after leading 14-6 over the Lakers in the first quarter.
“We had a good start to the game,” said WL-Salem head coach Darrin Leichty. “We started missing shots and weren’t scoring in transition. I feel like we had a great start to the third. We tightened up our defense, but Indian Lake moved the ball really well as the game went on. We got in foul trouble a little bit. We were banged up by the third quarter with some lingering injuries and it took its toll on us, too.”
The Lakers, who beat WL-S 68-57 during a regular-season meeting, ended the opening period on an 11-3 run to tie the game at 17-17.
“We talked about going out and saying with them in the first quarter,” said Overturf.
“We knew they would be excited to be there, too. As long as we could stay within striking distance, we knew we could make some adjustments defensively, then we could figure out the rest of the game.”
Indian Lake carried its momentum into the second quarter with an 8-0 start to go ahead 25-17. The Lakers would take the period 14-6 and led 31-23 at halftime.
Overturf was pleased to see his team adjust and create a wider gap that would help carry them through the second half of Saturday’s game.
“Their defensive pressure was a lot better than the first time,” said Overturf. “We hit 16 three-pointers against them in that first game, so we knew they would be guarding us tighter. They did a good job crowding our shooters, but we were able to space them out and open some things up.”
WL-Salem was able to close within five points during the third quarter, but Indian Lake’s Caleb Wurster accounted for three three-pointers during the period. That helped the Lakers to an 11-point advantage at 43-32.
“Unfortunately, we weren’t getting stops in the third quarter,” said Leichty. “Wurster hit three three-pointers and that hurt us. We were losing ground and Indian Lake moved the ball well. We had to try and trap them and they got some easy baskets.”
With an 11-point lead going into the fourth quarter, Indian Lake held off WL-Salem 12-5 to preserve the historic victory. Luke Jackson sparked the Laker offense in the final period, scoring seven of his 13 points.
Wurster scored a game-high 17 points to pace Indian Lake, Jackson had 13, Zander Barnes finished with 11 points and Caiden Nicol added eight points.
For the Tigers, Nick Burden led the way with 12 points. Owen Johnson had nine points and Logan Saylor tallied eight points.
Up until the sectional final, Leichty felt his team had been building momentum.
“Before Saturday, we won the last eight of 11 games so I felt we were playing our best basketball at the end of the season,” said Leichty. “We had some big wins in that stretch.
Obviously, this game we would like to have back, but it was good to see our guys come together in this stretch and continue our attention to detail. I’m also really proud of seniors and what they’ve done for us the past four years.”
INDIAN LAKE 55
WL-SALEM 37
WL-SALEM (15-9)
Burden 4 3-3 12; Johnson 4 0-0 9; Strapp 1 0-0 2; LeVan 2 2-3 6; Saylor 3 2-4 8. Totals: 14 7-10 37.
INDIAN LAKE (14-11)
Nicol 3 2-3 8; Barnes 4 3-4 11; Coburn 2 2-2 6; Wurster 5 4-4 17; Jackson 5 2-2 13; Totals: 19 13-15 55.
Tigers 17 6 9 5 — 37
Lakers 12 14 12 12 — 55
Three pointers: WL-Salem 2 (Burden, Johnson); Indian Lake 4 (Wurster 3, Jackson).
Rebounds: Indian Lake 36 (Wurster 11, Coburn 10). Assists: Indian Lake 14 (Barnes 8). Steals: Indian Lake 8. Turnovers: Indian Lake 9. Team fouls: WL-Salem 15; Indian Lake 10.