Kirtland falls at state

DAYTON — Berlin Hiland held Kirtland scoreless for an 11-minute span midway through the game on the way to the Hawks’ 65-43 win in a Division VI state semifinal Friday at Wright State University’s Nutter Center.

Hiland has won 20 games in a row to improve to 25-3 heading into the state championship game at 7:30 p.m Saturday at University of Dayton Arena. This is the Hawks’ 15th state appearance, including state titles in 1992, 2011 and 2012.

Senior Caleb Yoder led the Hawks with a game-high 22 points on 8-of-11 shooting and 10 rebounds.

Junior starter Sammy Ridgeway topped Kirtland with a team-high 10 points and five rebounds in 22 minutes. He is the son of former United standout Matt Ridgeway.

Kirtland finishes the season with a 24-4 record and a Salem district title on the way to a second straight state semifinal appearance.

The Salem district has produced three eventual state champions over 55 years– Youngstown Rayen in 1985, Campbell Memorial in 1993 and Akron St. Vincent-St. Mary led by sophomore LeBron James in 2001.

Malvern, Hillsdale bow out

DAYTON — Malvern and Jeromesville Hillsdale both suffered losses in the Division VII boys basketball state finals on Friday.

Unbeaten Delphos St. John’s beat Malvern, 61-32, while Kalida stopped Hillsdale, 58-46, at Wright State University’s Nutter Center.

Delphos St. John’s (28-0) will play Kalida (17-11) in the state championship game at 4:15 p.m. Saturday at University of Dayton Arena.

Two-time Ohio Mr. Basketball runner-up Cameron Elwer led Delphos St. John’s with a game-high 18 points on 5-of-7 shooting from the field along with seven rebounds and four steals. He is Ohio’s sixth all-time leading scorer with 2,790 points in his career. Elwer has signed with NCAA Division I Furman (S.C.) University.

Delonte Simmons paced Malvern with 11 points. Malvern finishes the season at 19-10, which included a 57-54 loss at Minerva on Jan. 3.

Hillsdale led 16-5 late in the first quarter and 35-30 with 5 1/2 minutes left in the third quarter. Kalida held a 28-11 scoring edge in the final 13 1/2 minutes.

Kalida’s bench outscored Hillsdale’s 29-0.

Kael Lewis topped Hillsdale with a game-high 21 points, 10 rebounds and four steals. Hayden McFadden contributed 10 points.

Hillsdale (20-8) edged Heartland Christian, 58-57, in the regional championship game.

Attendance for the semifinal games was 5,609.

Buckeyes to play for title

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. (AP) — Ohio State scored four goals in the final 10 minutes of the first period, and the No. 1 overall seed Buckeyes beat fifth-seeded Northeastern 5-0 on Friday in the first of two semifinals Friday night at Pegula Ice Arena.

Ohio State (36-4-0), which set the program’s single-season wins record with 36, advanced to its fifth straight national title game to improve to 14-4 in the NCAA Tournament and 7-4 in the Frozen Four.

Northeastern (29-9-1) was making its fourth Frozen Four appearance in program history and first since 2023 when Ohio State defeated the Huskies 3-0. The Huskies dropped to 5-7-0 in the NCAA Tournament.

Five different players scored for the Buckeyes and 10 players recorded a point.

Joy Dunne, a Patty Kazmaier top-10 finalist, scored on a rebound 10 minutes into the game for her 27th goal of the season. Then Kaia Malachino and Sanni Vanhanen scored a minute apart for a 3-0 lead.

Emma Peschel beat the first-period buzzer with a slap shot to make it 4-0 and Sara Swiderski sent a shot from the blue line that deflected into the goal in the third.

Hailey MacLeod recorded her fifth shutout this season with 15 saves — five coming in the first 10 minutes.

Brackets getting busted

The odds of a picking perfect NCAA Tournament bracket are astronomical for a reason.

The number of unblemished entries in ESPN’s bracket challenge dropped to 423 with four games to play Friday night, thanks in part to ninth-seeded Utah State’s win over eighth-seeded Villanova.

Translation: Over 99.999% of the 26 million-plus brackets entered have already been busted.

It was much the same over at the NCAA’s bracket challenge, where error-free entries were at 0.005% heading into Friday night’s games.

Things were off to a slightly better start for those who gave ESPN’s women’s bracket challenge a shot. More than 1.1 million perfect brackets remained after Friday’s opening set of games.

Yet even with the higher seeds prevailing in every contest, well over 2 million entries had already fallen by the wayside.

Kalshi, a leader in prediction markets — in which users buy and trade shares based on potential event outcomes — is offering $1 billion (yes, that’s billion with a “b”) to anyone who predicts all 63 tournament games correctly, with a “consolation” prize of $1 million to the person who finishes with the top-scoring bracket.

The dream of becoming a billionaire was still alive for 83 people when Friday’s games tipped off.

The unpredictability of the tournament is one of the reasons the odds of going 63-0 are somewhere between one in 9.2 quintillion (for totally random guesses) or one in 120 billion (semi-educated ones).

It can also serve as a boon for bookmakers. A record $3.3 billion is expected to be wagered legally on the men’s tournament, according to the American Gaming Association.

While hard numbers on the amount of wagering done Thursday were unavailable, BetMGM spokesman John Ewing noted the tournament — which he said generates about as much action as the Super Bowl — is one of the uncommon instances where bettors put their money where their hearts are.

Though the top seeds have performed well in recent years, a lot of the action during the opening weekend goes elsewhere as fans try to cash in on potential Cinderellas.

“In March Madness, underdogs and upsets are such a popular theme and part of our culture that even though favorites have done so well lately, we still see underdogs taking a majority of bets in many games,” Ewing said.

That was certainly the case on Thursday night when 16th-seeded Siena opened a double-digit lead over top-seeded Duke. Wagers on the Saints pulling off the stunner spiked at halftime, meaning the house did pretty well when the Blue Devils rallied.

While Duke survived and advanced, its struggles did not go unnoticed. The Blue Devils opened the tournament as the betting favorites to win it all.

That wasn’t the case Friday morning, when Arizona replaced Duke as the top choice among futures bettors at BetMGM, followed by Michigan, with the Blue Devils falling to third.

Ewing said the dip was more about support for the Wildcats than it was a knock on Duke. He added there have been wagers of $50,000 on Arizona and Houston to win it all, with another bettor putting $100,000 on Purdue to reach the Final Four.

Betting interest in the women’s tournament continues to increase, which Ewing attributed to part of the ripple effect of Caitlin Clark bringing more eyes to the sport. The ability to watch every game has also helped.

“I think people are just realizing it’s just as much fun as the men’s tournament,” Ewing said.

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AP March Madness bracket: https://apnews.com/hub/ncaa-mens-bracket and coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness