43
Simboli rescues Tigers at buzzer
By Ryan Buck
NEW MIDDLETOWN
Mark Schuler, the Springfield High boys basketball team’s leading scorer, is the latest product of the first family of this community’s sports.
A small road just off the center of town bears the same name of another key player (Jake Ohlin).
Several of the standouts from the Tigers’ successful football team and Division IV state runners-up baseball squad also take the court in the winter.
A large portrait of the annual “Mr. and Miss Springfield” lead guests into the gymnasium. But with all due respect to the deserving pair, the Mr. Springfield title belonged to junior guard Nate Simboli Friday night after a 53-51 victory over Southern.
Simboli’s lay-up over two defenders as time expired gave the conference-leading Tigers the Inter Tri-County League win over the third-place Indians.
After Southern guard Troy Holden tied the game with a soaring lay-up and foul shot with 14 seconds left, Springfield coach Eric Fender brought his team to the bench for one final play.
“Once our point guard figured out that they were in man-to-man defensively to finish the game,” Fender said, “we had a play designed and we made a nice read off it.”
As the clock dwindled down to six seconds, Hunter Snyder dribbled hard right from the top of the key and spun back to his left before splitting the Indians’ interior defense with a precise pass for Simboli, who had cut across the baseline to the left of the basket.
“It was very nerve-wracking,” said Simboli, who is one of the first players off the bench for Springfield. “I wasn’t ready for that pass. Hunter saw the opening and it was there. I was just hoping it went in.”
His contested lay-up off the glass was true as the final second ticked away and sent the gym into euphoria.
“I was like, “Wow. We just won,’” Simboli said.
Simboli’s shot and third basket capped a wild fourth quarter that saw Springfield grab its first lead of the game on a Snyder basket with 1:50 left.
Schuler, who scored a game-high 16 points, made four free throws in a 50-second span to put Springfield up five.
Southern guard MJ Williams hit a three-pointer to bring the Indians deficit back to three points with 30 seconds left, setting up Holden’s game-tying drive following a missed Tigers free throw.
Holden knocked down his final free throw, but it was Southern’s foul line woes in the fourth that may have doomed them.
The Indians missed five of eight attempts in the fourth and converted five of 13 for the game. In addition, their pair of standout forwards in Jared Shilot and Andrew Russell fouled out within three possessions of Simboli’s winning basket.
“The most disappointing thing is the foul shots,” Southern coach George Whittaker said, “because they’re just there and we have foul shooting contest every day, trying to put some pressure on the kids. But they just didn’t fall and that’s the way it is sometimes.”
Springfield’s win keeps them one game ahead of Lisbon atop the ITCL Upper Tier. The two play Friday in Lisbon.