Summary:The Howells Hoosiers used some late-game dramatics to qualify for their sixth straight Farmland Basketball League championship game.
The Howells town team has made the FBL final every year it has been in the Farmland. In three of those championship games, it faced the Oakland Heights, with Oakland winning every time.
This year, those two teams met in the semifinals in Howells on Sunday.
Oakland led for much of the game with Chris Johnson and Zach Rosenboom doing work on the inside.
However, Howells stayed close with Justin Sindelar working the paint and Sam Schlautman striking from the outside.
Oakland led by as many as seven late in the second half, but the Hoosiers crawled back into the game until Tyler Brester drove for a layup with 12 seconds left to tie the game at 58-58.
Oakland couldn’t answer and the game headed to overtime.
The extra period was just as close as regulation, but Schlautman had the final word, nailing his seventh 3-pointer of the game with 5.9 seconds remaining.
The Heights got off a buzzer-beating 3, but it was off the mark, allowing Howells to hang on for the 65-62 win.
Schlautman led the Hoosiers with 23 points, while Sindelar added 20 and Luke Hegemann contributed 11 points.
Johnson led the defending champs from Oakland with 17 points.
Howells, now 8-0, will look to become the first Farmland team to go undefeated in the nine-year history of the league with a win in Sunday’s championship game.

Oakland

No.	Name	gp	pts.
4	Ryan Stansberry	1	7
2	Chris Johnson	1	17
7	Derek Lahm	1	5
14	Quinn Charling	1	5
35	Gus Ray	1	1
44	Brandon Carda	1	9
44	Ryan Brehmer	0	-
33	Mike Selk	1	4
0	Zach Rosenboom	1	14
	Clint Peterson	0	-

Technical- none

Howells

No.	Name	gp	pts.
2	Bryon Janata	1	0
3	Tyler Brester	1	8
4	Brady Brester	1	0
5	Andrew Faltys	1	0
10	Luke Hegemann	1	11
12	Steve Schmidt	0	-
13	Scott Bayer	1	0
14	Justin Sindelar	1	20
20	Sam Schlautman	1	23
22	Mike Bayer	1	0
23	Tyler Schwartz	1	3

Technicals- none