East avenges defeat to Ursuline

Kenny Carter, Jamayle Roland and Mark Thornton were the Panthers’ top scorers.

By CHUCK HOUSTEAU

VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT

YOUNGSTOWN - When the Ursuline and East basketball teams battled into overtime on Dec. 12 at the Chevrolet Centre in the Warren-Youngstown Holiday Basketball Classic, it gave a clue that the rematch at East High would be equally close.

Ursuline won that first game 49-48, but the Panthers got revenge holding off the Irish 50-46 Friday night.

Kenny Carter led a balanced attack with 15 points while Jamayle Roland and Mark Thornton chipped in with 10 points each for the Panthers (6-5).

“It was a great win,” said East coach Mark Cherol who last year guided the Wilson Redmen. “We [former schools Rayen and Wilson] haven’t beaten Ursuline in a long time so to beat a program like that is quite a feather in our cap.”

Carter, who was a starter at Rayen last season, said turning the tide on the Irish was huge motivation this time around.

“This was a very big win for us,” Carter said. “They beat us by one point last time in a heartbreaker.

“Coach told us what we had to do better to win and we did it.”

What the Panthers did was frustrate Ursuline’s leading scorer, senior guard Nick McCartney, who was held scoreless.

“We made him take a lot of off-balance shots,” Cherol said. “Our game plan was definitely to focus a lot of our effort on McCartney.”

Ursuline coach Keith Gunther said that East’s zone defense frustrated the Irish.

“We didn’t do a good job against their zone and we didn’t do a good job of getting the ball inside,” Gunther said. “We missed a lot of easy two-foot baskets.”

The Irish (5-3) made those shots early in the game as inside players Dominique Cole and Jamel Turner scored all 12 of Ursuline’s points in the first period.

The Panthers got rolling in the second quarter behind some big shots by juniors Carter and Thornton who got his first significant varsity action of the season.

East outscored Ursuline 14-10 in the second quarter to pull to within a point 21-20 at the break. In the third period, East continued to attack and began to pull away by hitting six of nine shots from the field to lead the Irish 36-32.

“That may have been our best third quarter of the year,” Cherol said. “We needed that because we knew Ursuline was going to make a run at us in the end.”

The Irish did just that but not before falling behind by eight points, 47-39 on a shot by Roland with 55 seconds left in the game.

The Irish stormed back to outscore East 5-1 to cut the margin to 48-44 on a basket by George Williams with 12.2 seconds left, but Ursuline could get no closer.

“We have to stop thinking we can just step on the court and win games,” said Gunther, who watched his Irish sweep the Farrell tournament last week. “We have to get the rollercoaster out of our ride and get a lot more consistent.

“Winning teams play consistent basketball.”

The Irish were led by Cole who tallied 19 points and 11 rebounds while Turner added 10 points and 11 rebounds. Ursuline outrebounded the Panthers 38-33.