Irish defense is big factor in 46-35 win

Ursuline held Howland scoreless in the last period to win the Girard tournament.
By DOUG CHAPIN
Vindicator Correspondent
GIRARD -- Ursuline held Howland scoreless in the final quarter and posted a hard-fought 46-35 victory over the Tigers Thursday night in the championship game of the Girard Holiday Tournament.
Campbell bested host Girard, 80-52, in the consolation game.
"We played great defense in the fourth quarter, but we should have played like that before then," Ursuline coach Keith Gunther said. "My hat goes off to coach [Don] Andres and his coaches and players. They played hard and they played smart."
"Our kids played hard, we just couldn't come up with any loose balls. We didn't score in the fourth quarter but it wasn't for lack of effort," Andres said. "I thought our kids played as hard as theirs, we just ran into a wall in the last quarter. They went into a zone and we couldn't hit."
Howland lagged by two
Dario Hadzovic's 3-pointer at the buzzer ending the third quarter left the Tigers behind 37-35 after they had trailed 31-20 earlier in the quarter.
Little did anyone know that was the last of the 6-foot-7 senior's game-high 19 points.
"We used a 2-3 matchup zone in the fourth quarter," Gunther said. "We had been working on our man-to-man but we made a decision to go to the matchup to keep the ball out on the perimeter and out of Dario's hands."
Howland (3-4) was 0-for-7 in the fourth frame and just one of the attempts was inside the 3-point arc. Ursuline (6-2) was milking the clock for the most part, but got two key buckets from D'Aundrey Brown to increase the lead to 41-35 before Jason White nailed a 3-pointer off an inbounds play with 2:06 remaining.
"That was a huge shot. We set up the play figuring they would defend the interior and we told Jason if he gets a good look to knock it down," Gunther said.
Jones leads Irish
The Irish were led by 6-foot-8 Jerome Jones, who scored 14 points and grabbed 10 rebounds while waging a battle for position in the paint with Hadzovic and Howland's other big man, 6-foot-8 Greg Hawes. Brown added 10 points and Lance Randall scored eight.
The tempo was to Howland's liking most of the night.
"The lower the score, the better our chances," Andres said. "We told our kids we were proud of them and not to hang their heads. We'll come back ready for Liberty next week. No one has blown us out; we've been in every game."
Ursuline led 12-9 after the first quarter and 23-18 at halftime. The Irish opened the lead to 31-20 on a three-point play off an offensive rebound by Jones. Zack Byler and Nathan Cope gave the Tigers some life off the bench as Howland rallied. Cope scored four points in the quarter off offensive rebounds and Byler's layup off a steal cut the gap to 35-32 in the final minute of the period. After Jones scored for Ursuline, Hadzovic nailed his 3-pointer, setting up the final frame.
Gunther said he knows the Tigers wanted a low-scoring game and that other teams will try to do the same thing against the Irish.
"I'm sure that was part of their game plan. If we can get going up and down the floor, we can cause some problems," he said. "But we've got to learn both styles. At one point we were up by 11 points and could have gone to 13 or 15 but we didn't play real smart there. A couple of turnovers and they get it back to seven or five and the game stays close.
"But we finished well. In the last quarter we played great defense, rebounded well and made shots when we had to."
Campbell has strong start
The consolation game was decided early as Campbell, coming off its first loss of the season on Tuesday against Howland, ran out to a 12-0 lead. The Red Devils led 25-12 at the quarter, 40-26 at the half and 59-39 after three quarters.
"We shot poorly against Howland," Campbell coach Brian Danilov said about the 8-1 Devils' first loss. "When you shoot 32 percent from the floor and 42 percent from the line, you're not going to beat too many teams. Howland is a good team, but there are certain things we have to do to be successful. It's more a matter of us doing what we are supposed to do."
Campbell got good scoring balance led by Trey Soares with 21 points.
Terrence Philips scored 16, Tommy Hall had 15, Ryan Burton 14 and Jermaine Richardson 10.
"Tonight we shared the ball a lot, we had a lot of assists," Danilov said. "We just did a better job of moving."
Girard (0-5) had three players in double figures. Brett Cubellis scored 15 points, Eric Stevens had 12 and Jon Smerchansky 11.