EATON TWP. — Olmsted Falls has had more successful basketball teams that won bigger games with better talent.
But the current Bulldogs pulled one of the most suspenseful upsets in the history of their tradition-rich program on Thursday night.
Junior forward Scott Kimmey rebounded his own missed shot and put it back for a 62-61 double-overtime victory over top-seeded Brunswick in a Division I district semifinal at Midview. His basket came with 3.6 seconds left in the second overtime. Brunswick missed a long 3-point shot at the buzzer.
It was a classic thriller that had a big crowd on its feet for much of the fourth quarter and the overtime periods.
“That was a fun game to watch if you were sitting in the crowd with no rooting interest,” said Pat Donohue, the Bulldogs’ happy head coach. “I’m sure the Brunswick fans think it’s a terrible game and our fans think it’s the best game in the history of the program.
“But it was a fun game,” he said. “It was more fun because we won, but it would have been a fun game no matter what happened. It was one of those games where big players were hitting big shots. It kept going up and down. A couple times, I thought we had them, but they just kept fighting back.”
The unheralded and unseeded Bulldogs (16-7) advance to a 7 p.m. district final date with second-seeded Elyria on Saturday. In another thriller, the Pioneers came from 18 points down in the second half to defeat Strongsville, 68-64, in Thursday night’s second game.
Donohue described the 6-foot-2 Kimmey as “a man on a mission.” Kimmey said it was a fair characterization.
“I mean, I just don’t like losing,” he said. “This is like my family for four months of the year and I give them everything I got. I don’t want to let them go home, so I was just doing whatever I could to move on.”
As for his big rebound and winning putback, he said: “It just happened to come to me. Everybody was boxing out and I just happened to get the ball. It could have been anybody, but it happened to be me. This was just a heck of an effort by the team.”
It was. With Kimmey scoring eight points, Olmsted Falls raced to a 12-3 lead and led 14-5 after a quarter. But Brunswick (16-6) cranked up the defense, held the Bulldogs to just two points — foul shots — in the second quarter and took control, 19-16, at the break.
Then with Tony Lanza hitting two 3-point baskets and Jim Brabenec and Pat Pellerite scoring four points each in the third period, Olmsted Falls was back in the lead, 32-31, heading into the final eight minutes.
The fourth quarter was a hair-raiser. Brunswick took a 42-36 lead with just over three minutes left in regulation time. And the Blue Devils were still on top 48-44 with 45 seconds to go. Then Brabenec drove for a basket and Kimmey hit two foul shots with 24 seconds left to tie the game at 48, the score when it went into overtime.
The teams each scored five points in the first extra period. They traded baskets in the first two minutes of the second overtime, then Kimmey drilled the third of his three 3-point baskets and Lanza scored off a steal and it seemed as though Olmsted Falls was in business, 60-55, with about a minute to go.
Guess again. Brunswick put together a 6-0 run, which it capped with two foul shots by Joe Puch for a 61-60 lead with 17 seconds to play. It set the stage for Kimmey’s heroics.
Some might be incredulous that Olmsted Falls hung on late in the fourth quarter, then prevailed in overtime with Pat Pellerite, its 6-4 senior forward and leading scorer, on the bench. Pellerite fouled out with 25 seconds left in regulation.
No need to be, said Donohue.
“We’ve done this so many times without him all year,” Donohue said. “Because he’s our best defender and because he defends the basketball, he picks up a lot of fouls. So we’re used to playing without him, although obviously not at the end of a game — not playing two overtimes and a portion of regulation. But our kids don’t panic when it happens.”
Kimmey finished with not only the game-winner, but also with a game-high 19 points that included three of the Bulldogs’ six 3-point baskets. Pellerite had scored 14 points when he fouled out and Brabenec added 11. Puch scored 17 points for Brunswick and Bob Ritchie 10.
“Give both teams credit,” said Brunswick coach Joe Mackey. “Any time you lose it’s hard, but I feel for our seniors. This is a tough way to go down. With that said, we had our opportunities as did they. It was just one of those things. It wasn’t in the cards.”
Contact Bob Daniels at 329-7135 or ctsports@chroniclet.com.
Olmsted Falls 62, Brunswick 61
OLMSTED FALLS (63): Tony Lanza 3-0-8, Scott Kimmey 6-4-19, Mike Abraham 0-0-0, Mark Hurrell 1-2-4, Brandon Russo 2-0-4, Jim Brabenec 4-2-11, Steve Battaglia 0-0-0, Pat Pellerite 5-4-14, Orlando Glenn 0-2-2. Totals: 21-14-62.
BRUNSWICK (61): Bob Ritchie 3-2-10, Dan Kissling 2-0-4, Jassen Kavedzic 4-0-8, Bill Slattery 1-0-2, Joe Puch 4-6-17, Alex Lukic 4-1-9, Ryan Pokorny 1-0-2. Totals: 23-10-61.
Olmsted Falls    14  2 16 16 5 9 – 62
Brunswick     5 14 12 17 5 8 – 61
3-point goals: Olmsted Falls 6-12 (Kimmey 3, Lanza 2, Brabenec); Brunswick 5-13 (Puch 3, Ritchie 2). Field goals: Olmsted Falls 21-46 (45.7 percent); Brunswick 23-57 (40.4 percent). Free throws: Olmsted Falls 14-19; Brunswick 10-15. Rebounds: Olmsted Falls 23; Brunswick 35. Turnovers: Olmsted Falls 14; Brunswick 19. Fouled out: Lukic, Pellerite.

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