By John RittenhouseWhen it comes to tournament basketball, success, more times than not, stems from the way the leaders of the team play.Ellsworth High School relied on a pair of underclassmen (junior Aaron Van Der Stoep and sophomore Cody Schilling) to get to the South Section 3A Basketball Tournament title game against Fulda at Southwest State University in Marshall.On Saturday, a combined 38-point effort from Van Der Stoep and Schilling wasn’t enough to give the Panthers their third South Section 3A title in the last four years. The underclassmen made their contributions, but it was the second-half play of seniors Bryan Kramer, Ben Herman and Nick Deutsch that led the Panthers to a 78-67 victory over the Raiders.Ellsworth, which trailed by as many as seven points twice in the game’s second half, needed more than two people to step up if it wanted to rally in the game’s final 10 minutes and extend the season.Kramer, Herman and Deutsch accepted the challenge.Kramer and Herman netted nine points each in the game’s final 18 minutes, including all nine of the points in a run that gave EHS its first lead of the game.Deutsch, who netted five second-half points of his own, came off the bench to give EHS an important boost on the defensive side of the court.With the three seniors leading the way, EHS was able to outscore Fulda 36-18 in the final 10:42 of the game to send EHS to tonight’s Section 3A title game at 8 p.m. tonight at SSU."Our seniors really stepped up big for us in the second half," said Panther coach Markus Okeson. "It was nice to have their leadership."Ellsworth, which trailed 34-31 at halftime, pulled within one point (34-33) when Weston DeBerg converted an offensive rebound into a field goal 24 seconds into the second stanza.Fulda, however, countered with an 8-3 spurt to lead 42-35 at the 14:33 mark. The Raiders still led by seven (49-42) with 10:42 remaining, but the Panthers moved in front (51-49) when Herman drained a three-point shot and Kramer hit back-to-back threes to give EHS its first lead with 8:10 left to play."I was just getting open against their zone (defense), Kramer said. "I just wanted to slow it down, be calm and get good shots off."Fulda regained the lead at 52-51 with 7:57 left before Schilling put EHS in front to stay (53-52) with two of his 19 points 17 seconds later.Schilling’s hoop ignited an 18-5 run that ended with Herman draining a field goal with 2:29 remaining, giving the Panthers a 69-57 advantage.Fulda drew within seven points (74-67) with less than one minute remaining, but DeBerg iced the contest by sinking four consecutive free throws in the final 26 seconds.The Panthers appeared to be in trouble early when Fulda scored the first seven points of the game on the way to opening a 14-3 lead at the 13:38 mark of the first half.Ellsworth trimmed the difference to one point (21-20) when Herman hit a shot in the paint with 7:34 remaining, and the score was tied at 30 when Kramer drained a field goal at 3:08.Fulda fought back to sport a 34-21 lead at the intermission."It was crazy," Kramer recalled. "They were making all of their shots, and I didn’t know what to think. They were hitting everything, and they were outrebounding us in the first half."Okeson agreed with Kramer’s assessment of the first 18 minutes."They made their shots and we missed ours. We didn’t do a good job of boxing out, but we firmed that up a little bit in the second half," the coach added. "We started to hit some of our open shots in the second half, breaking them out of their zone."Schilling and Van Der Stoep netted 19 points each, and Schilling pulled down a team-high 17 rebounds. Kramer scored 16 points and snared nine rebounds. Herman scored 12 points, and Deutsch charted five assists.By winning the South title, Ellsworth earns the right to face two-time defending state champion Russell-Tyler-Ruthton in the Section 3A title game.The Knights, who rolled to a convincing win over Lakeview in Saturday’s North championship game, have split games against EHS this season.Kramer and the Panthers will not be intimidated by R-T-R. In fact, playing a third game against the Knights is the match-up they wanted."I want to play R-T-R. I think we can beat them," Kramer concluded.Box scoreDeBerg 1 0 4-4 6, Deutsch 1 0 3-4 5, Kramer 2 4 0-2 16, Van Der Stoep 1 4 5-6 19, Herman 4 1 1-3 12, Lindemann 0 0 0-0 0, Chapa 0 0 0-0 0, Jansea 0 0 1-2 1, Klaassen 0 0 0-0 0, Matejeske 0 0 0-0 0, Nolte 0 0 0-0 0, Schilling 7 0 5-9 19.Team statisticsEllsworth: 25 of 48 field goals (52 percent), 19 of 30 free throws (63 percent), 42 rebounds, 16 turnovers.Fulda: 25 of 61 field goals (41 percent), nine of 20 free throws (45 percent), 32 rebounds, 13 turnovers.