Ursuline beats St. Thomas Aquinas with good defense

By Chuck Housteau

The Irish limited the Knights to just 10 first half points in a 57-41 victory.

YOUNGSTOWN — Ursuline High coach Keith Gunther doesn’t have to preach the importance of defense to his Irish basketball team.

Many of the basketball players are fresh off of winning a state football championship and are very aware that it was defense that brought the Irish its title victory.

“We all know defense wins championships,” said Ursuline’s Dominique Cole, a defensive end and receiver on the football team and the Irish’s leading scorer on the basketball team.

The Irish (3-0), who still aren’t in basketball shape according to Gunther, slapped a little defense on St. Thomas Aquinas in the first half and rolled to a 57-41 win Tuesday night.

Ursuline held the Knights to four points in the first quarter and six in the second while rolling to an early 22-10 lead at halftime.

“We held [St. Thomas] to 10 points and we were playing hard,” Gunther said. “That’s the second game in a row that we’ve done that.

“We slowed them down a lot in the first half and rebounded the ball well and played good enough offensively to get a nice lead.”

Ursuline’s defense held the usually sharp-shooting Knights team to just 2 of 12 in the first period and only allowed St. Thomas six shots in the second period.

“They made us uncomfortable offensively,” said St. Thomas coach Joe Harold. “We had our chances to score but we shot the ball uncharacteristically poor from the outside.

“You have to credit Ursuline for that. They played a very good defensive game against us and really made us uncomfortable.”

The Irish under Gunther have always relied on good defense and this year the veteran coach doesn’t have to go out of his way to get his players to believe in the concept of defense first.

“Four of our top players just won a championship in football and they did it with defense,” Gunther said. “They understand that and they make sure all the players understand it.”

Gunther said the Irish are playing good basketball and have the potential to be really good this year.

“We have some go-to players in Cole as a scorer and [Jamel] Turner on the blocks,” Gunther said. “The guards are solid and our most athletic player, Dale Peterman is out with a groin injury and didn’t play tonight.”

Cole was the go-to player in the third period as the Irish pushed the 11 point lead out to 13 points at 48-35.

Cole scored 10 of his game-high 23 points in the third period. The senior guard hit two big 3-point shots as St. Thomas tried to rally to get back in the game.

“In the flow of the game I got a lot of good looks at the basket,” Cole said. “I was able to make shots and that helped the team.

“But it’s our defense that we stress and we didn’t play good enough defense in the third period and almost let them back in the game.”

St. Thomas (3-3) got as close as 48-40 as Matt Dempsey hit three 3-pointers in the second half to score 17 points.

“I think we got a little more comfortable and played much better in the second half,” Harold said. “These are games we are going to have to play better in because if we want to play well later in the playoffs we have to go through Ursuline.”

The Irish controlled the boards and outrebounded the Knights 33-23 and forced St. Thomas into 19 turnovers.

Lavance Turnage and Marques Jones scored nine points each for Ursuline while Turner added eight points.