Day's good night: Falcons give coach first varsity victory

James Wallace had28 points and 23 rebounds against Girard.
By CHUCK HOUSTEAU
VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT
AUSTINTOWN -- First-year Fitch coach Roger Day admitted that he never faced anything like the mass substitution strategy that the Girard Indians threw at the Falcons Friday night.
It took Fitch awhile to get used to the swarms of new players that the Indians kept inserting into the game to try to disrupt the offensive flow of the Falcons.
Fitch finally came up with a big third quarter to break open a 37-all tie and eventually ran away from the Indians 81-62.
Senior James Wallace scored 28 points and grabbed 23 rebounds and all five Fitch starters scored at least nine points to earn Day his first coaching victory as the Falcons' head coach.
"That was incredible," said Day. "I've never seen anything like that [substituting pattern] but their team played so hard.
"When you play Girard, you have to play hard or you're going to be in trouble."
The Falcons did exactly that right from the opening tip.
The teams matched point for point in the first two quarters as the fast and furious pace seemed helter-skelter at times.
Shots galore by both teams
The Indians threw up 40 shots in the first 16 minutes while the Falcons countered with 36 attempts. Combined, the Falcons and Indians threw up nearly five shots every minute.
Wallace was a tough matchup for the Indians despite the fact that 11 players alternated into the game for Girard every minute or so.
"Wallace has been a starter for three years and he is a great player," Day said of his standout forward.
"He's super but the other guys do a great job around him, which has to happen for us to be successful."
Wallace scored 16 of his points in the first half while John Smerchansky had the hot hand for Girard with 13 of his 14 points tallied in the first two periods.
"We gave Fitch a game for the first half," said Girard coach Bryan O'Hara. "We're still working out the kinks but we're going to stick with this [style of play] and I think it is going to come together."
Fitch's quickness extends Girard
The Falcons had too much quickness with the eight players they rotated into the game and that speed began to give Girard trouble in the second half.
Guard John Stockman began to heat up for the Falcons and he dropped in 19 points while guards Marcus Boyd and Keane Boyd raced past the Girard defenders for open shots or made good passes inside to Wallace and Tom Hahn.
Keane Boyd scored 12 points and had eight rebounds while Marcus Boyd scored nine points. Hahn also scored nine points.
"We wanted to attack and did a good job," Day said. "We knew they were going to try to trap us but we wanted to break the trap and get some easy looks.
"We were able to do that in the second half successfully."
The game was last tied at 41-41 and the Falcons held a 1-point lead 51-50 before scoring the last eight points of the third quarter to open up a nine-point lead.
Fitch seals it with run
Fitch put the game away with a 13-5 run to start the fourth period to open up a 72-55 lead.
"We came in here against a good Divison I team and played well for the first half," O'Hara said. "We just have to keep at it and put a whole game together."
While Smerchansky led the Indians with 14 points, eight other players got in the scoring column.
Doug Starr scored 12 points and had seven rebounds while Sean Mostov added nine points. Eric Stevens and Brett Cubellis each scored eight points for the Indians.
Fitch pounded the Indians on the backboards and pulled down 55 rebounds to just 37 for Girard.