Lima Cent. hopes luck has changed

Associated Press

COLUMBUS

Bob Seggerson has won 515 games during a stellar coaching career. He swears he’s not haunted by a handful of the 209 he’s lost.

Seggerson, in his 32nd year as a head coach, will again bring Lima Central Catholic to the state tournament. Maybe things will be different this time. Maybe his Thunderbirds will catch a break. Maybe they’ll be the team lifting the biggest Division III trophy at the end.

“Maybe the gods of basketball will smile [on us] this time,” he said.

Seggerson and the Thunderbirds are due, that’s for sure.

They open the 88th annual tournament today when they meet Chesapeake in a semifinal at Ohio State’s Value City Arena. Both teams are 21-4.

“Go ahead, pick a dead scab,” Seggerson said with a laugh when asked about the toughest of his defeats at past state tournaments.

But joking doesn’t erase the pain of several ill-fated, star-crossed losses that have denied LCC and Seggerson a state championship.

“No, I have not forgotten them. I try not to sit around and think about it too much but I think the thing that people don’t get about it is that, they’re really not nightmares,” he said. “Of the games that we played at state, I would say every one of them we really played well. We were prepared, we were passionate. We got after it. We just didn’t get plays at the end, or didn’t get a break at the end.”

LCC lost the 1989 and 1994 state championship games by two points each. In the 1994 game — against Ursuline — Mr. Basketball Aaron Hutchens, who would go on to a glittering career at Marquette, missed several one-and-one situations down the stretch.

The Irish won 55-53.

In the 1993 semifinals, the Thunderbirds had a seven-point lead in the final minute and led by a point with five seconds left before a controversial foul call resulted in a loss to Berlin Hiland.

“I think we lost five games down there by a total of eight points,” Seggerson said. “Well, that’s tough. But it also means we’re a tough out. We get down there and we play hard, we get after people and that’s what we’re going to try to do this time. We’re going to prepare, we’re going to come down and play well, and just hope that that’s enough.”

Orrville (20-5) meets Columbus Ready (19-6) in the other Division III semifinal.

There’s four games al three days, with the champions decided on a marathon of contests on Saturday.