DAYTON − In the Division VI state championship game between Hiland and Marion Local − the top two ranked teams in the state, according to MaxPreps − on Saturday night at the University of Dayton Arena, unpredictability turned out to be the theme of the night.
If you were there from start to finish, you had no idea what was going to happen next and just when you thought you had a grasp of where the game was going, it went somewhere else.
We’ll allow Hiland head coach Mark Schlabach to explain what he was just a part of after it was all over.
“No one has seen more Hiland basketball than my Dad [Dave Schlabach] and probably Alex Miller’s father. That was the best Hiland basketball game I’ve been a part of,” he said in the postgame press conference. “Two teams that deserved to win the state championship. I don’t know what happened in that game other than we had no business taking it into overtime. They probably had no business taking it to double overtime.
That’s right, we had a double overtime tussle that saw Hiland (26-3) come out on the winning end 54-51 over Marion Local (26-2) to earn the program’s fourth state championship and cap the season on a 21-game winning streak.
The matchup with Marion Local proved to be an onerous one for the Hawks.
Ten of Marion Local’s varsity players stood at 6-feet or taller, with four of their five starters being over 6-foot. The Flyers might not have looked like the most skilled team out there, but the way they use their height, strength, body and tried to out-muscle opponents on both sides of the ball is what makes them such a tough matchup for anybody.
Schlabach knew that coming in.
“I thought the game would go exactly how it went,” he said. “Marion Local kids are so strong and physical. They don’t back down from anybody. Tough game to officiate. On free throw rebounds, it was a war down there.”
In a game where there’s just too much to unpack (we’ll add more later in the week), let’s highlight the key players/figures in this one.
Hiland senior guards Ashton Schrock and Alex Miller delivered late for their team, as Miller made two key drives to the basket to score with less than a minute to play in the fourth quarter.
Down 41-39, Miller (11 points, 5 steals, 4 rebounds, 2 assists), poked away the ball from a Marion Local player while he was pressuring full-court, with the ball landing right into Schrock’s hands. As soon as he got it, he took off and was fouled. Schrock (9 points) stepped up and made both free throws that eventually sent the game into overtime at 41-all.
“We always say in times like that you have to go back to your fundamentals,” said Schrock. “It doesn’t just happen magically. You have to put in the work in clutch times like that. So, that’s just habit.”
“I can’t think Coach Paul [Zacour] enough. Putting us in that situation was just fundamental habits,” Miller said. “We knew it was going to be a tough kind of game. We knew we were going to have to grind to the end.”
Hiland assistant coach Paul Zacour, who Schrock, Miller and Schlabach all credited with playing a crucial part in the victory for his defensive gameplan that included putting the 5-foot-8 Schrock on Marion Local’s 6-foot-2 Brayden Mescher, the Flyers main ball handler and someone who had 23 points in Friday’s state semifinal win over Lincolnview.
“Coach Paul is our everything,” Schlabach said. “Defensively, he’s our mastermind. Coach kind of decides our matchups and I just kind of give my opinion on it. Coach Paul just thought that Ashton had the ability to speed up Mescher. We thought Ashton could take away his space and wear him down a little bit.”
“He’s the heart of the defense,” Shrock said of Zacour. “I saw that he was 6’3″. I just had to trust my coaches because they know so much basketball. It worked out.”
Shrock did the job, holding Mescher to just nine points on just three field goal attempts, while forcing him to turn the ball over nine times in 39 minutes played.
Schlabach even said that he felt Schrock deserved to be named the state title game MVP, but that distinction went to the Hawks’ 6-foot-7 sophomore big man, Ryan Zerger, who not just produced a double-double (18 points, 11 rebounds, 3 blocks) but came away with a critical block in the waning seconds in the fourth quarter that pushed the game into overtime.
Afterwards, Zerger reflected on winning a state title as a sophomore in his first year being a part of Hiland basketball after transferring from GlenOak High School.
“It’s unbelievable. A year ago, my team got knocked out in the district semifinals and I just never thought I’d be here today,” he said. “So grateful. What a surreal feeling.”
For a Hiland team that was both an upper echelon defensive unit (never allowed any opposing team this season to score more than 60 points in a game and 11 times held an opponent to 30 points or less) and a overwhelming one at that (24 of the Hawks’ 26 wins were by double-digits and their average margin of victory this season was 27.4), they had to earn every ounce of their state championship game win.
Before exiting the University of Dayton Arena well past 10 p.m., Schlabach was asked about former acclaimed Hiland boys basketball coach Perry Resse, Jr. and what he would have thought about this 2026 state championship Hiland team.
“He would have loved our team and how hard we play,” Schlabach said, who now has won three state titles with Hiland (2011, 2012). “There isn’t a team we’ve had that doesn’t play hard. It’s his program. I’m just trying to carry on his legacy.”
(Note: During the postgame press conference, Coach Schlabach made the media aware that one of his players Roman Tkachuk and his family lost everything in a fire early in the week. Here is the link https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-my-family-rebuild-after-house-fire-2av9w to the Tkachuk family’s GoFundMe page if you want to help donate.)
jamessimpson@gannett.com
Twitter/X: @JamesSimpsonII
This article originally appeared on The Daily Record: Bringing it back to Berlin! Hiland wins OHSAA Division VI state title in a 2OT instant classic
Reporting by James Simpson II, Wooster Daily Record / The Daily Record
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
