WESTERVILLE - The Ironton Fighting Tigers are trying to shift from an automatic to a standard transmission.

Coach Roger Zornes said his team wasn't as adaptable as he wanted Monday, but it was still good enough to beat the Massillon Jackson Polar Bears 49-40 in the semifinals of the Westerville Rotary Holiday Tournament at Otterbein College.

"We wanted to come to a tournament like this to expose our kids to the different gears they'll face," Zornes said. "We have to be able to change gears. We got in cruise control early, then when we had to change gears we didn't respond real well at times to those changing gears."

Even though Ironton might have had some trouble shifting gears, they were still able to ride a strong defensive effort that limited the Polar Bears to a 9 of 31 shooting effort including just four field goals in the second half.

Nick Collins, a 6-foot-4 senior, turned in the defensive gem of the game as he worked most of the game on 6-8 Josh Yanke. Although Yanke had 17 points and 12 rebounds, he was 11 of 12 from the foul line and just 3 of 10 from the field.

"I thought Nick did a great job. That impressed me the most," Zornes said. "Between Nick and our running (Yanke) up and down the floor, I think we wore (Yanke) down. Defensively, we did a good job. That's a good win to beat a D-I (Division I) school."

Collins not only had a solid defensive effort, but he had his best scoring output of the season with 13 points. Brigham Waginger led the way with 14 points and seven steals. Joe Zornes added 11 points.

Ironton will play in the title game at 8 p.m. Tuesday against Westerville North/South.

Down 6-5 early, Ironton went on a 10-0 run and finished the first quarter with an 18-8 lead when Waginger nailed a 30-footer at the buzzer.

Joe Zornes drained a 3-pointer with 3:40 left in the half to push the lead to 25-12. The Bears were down 25-17 on two foul shots by Yanke with a minute on the clock, but Waginger came up with a steal and layup with 21 seconds left and it was 27-17 at the half.

Massillon Jackson took only four shots in the third quarter and failed to connect. The Polar Bears scored six points from the foul line as Ironton opened up a 38-23 lead.

A layup by Collins to start the fourth quarter gave Ironton its biggest lead at 40-23. However, the Polar Bears were able to get back in the game by making 8 of 12 foul shots. Ironton was just 3 of 8 from the line in the final quarter.

"We didn't shoot all that great, but we had some nice passes," coach Zornes said. "Free throws are still a problem. And we had six straight turnovers because we were getting a little greedy. They didn't score, but we didn't capitalize on their turnovers and that was disappointing."

A three-point play by Dhruv Khullar cut Ironton's lead to 46-35, and

three more foul shots narrowed the gap to 47-38.

The lead was 10 after Joe Zornes hit the front end of a one-and-one with 25 seconds to play, but Josh Taylor's layup cut the spread to 48-40.

Waginger got a steal and was fouled with two seconds to go and hit the second of two shots to set the final score.

Ironton1891111-49

Mass. Jackson89617-40

IRONTON (4-1):

Josh Sands 2-5 (0-0) 0-0 4, Brigham Waginger 5-11 (1-3) 3-6 14, Dennis Gagai 2-12 (1-7) 0-0 5, Derique Bacon 0-1 (0-0) 0-0 0, Joe Zornes 3-8 (2-4) 3-4 11, Nick Collins 6-7 (0-0) 1-2 13, Marcus Williams 1-2 (0-0) 0-2 2, Patrick Kouns 0-0 (0-0) 0-0 0. Totals: 19-46

(4-16)

7-14

49. Fouls: 23. Fouled out: None. Rebounds: 9-9=18 (Waginger 4, Gagai 4, Collins 3, Zornes 3). Team/deadball rebounds: 2. Assists: 6 (Gagai 3). Steals: 17 (Waginger 7, Gagai 4, Sands 3). Turnovers: 17. FG% – 41.3. FT% – 50. 3pt% – 25.

MASSILLON JACKSON (4-2):

Josh Taylor 3-5 (0-2) 1-4 7, Dhruv Khullar 2-7 (0-2) 5-6 9, Kyle Murphy 0-0 (0-0) 2-2 2, Jake Planck 0-0 (0-0) 1-4 1, Josh Yanke 3-10 (0-0) 11-12 17, Matt Harmon 0-0 (0-0) 0-0 0, Jon Kopf 0-0 (0-0) 0-0 0, Chad Pfeiffer 0-1 (0-0) 0-0 0, Matt Lowdermilk 0-2 (0-0) 1-2 1, Kyle Jones 1-3 (1-3) 0-0 3, Mike Nichols 0-1 (0-1) 0-0 0. Totals: 9-31

(1-8)

21-30

40. Fouls: 13. Fouled out: Khullar (0:46 4th). Rebounds: 7-18=25 (Yanke 12, Khullar 5). Team/deadball rebounds: 6. Assists: 1 (Planck). Steals: 8 (Khullar 3, Murphy 2, Taylor 2). Turnovers: 27. FG% – 29. FT% – 70. 3pt% – 12.5.