Newton Falls buries Eagles; 6-11 Marcus Fowler a force

Hubbard was held without
a field goal in the fourth quarter.

By DOUG CHAPIN

VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT

NEWTON FALLS — When a basketball team or individual player is said to be “in a zone” it usually means they are shooting the ball extremely well.

In looking at Newton Falls High’s excellent shooting statistics in a 70-35 rout Tuesday night of Trumbull Athletic Conference opponent Hubbard, some might apply that term to the Tigers.

But in fact the zone that really mattered was at the other end of the floor. Falls (6-3, 3-0 TAC) employed an aggressive 2-3 zone defense to make things difficult all night for the Eagles.

“I thought we played a very good 2-3 zone all night long,” Tiger coach Roy Sembach said. “We did a pretty solid job all night long of keeping them out of the paint and we did a pretty good job of getting out on (Marc) Kanetsky, who is a very dangerous shooter out there.”

Hubbard (6-3, 2-1 TAC) scored the first bucket of the game, but the Tigers tallied the next 11 points on the way to a 17-7 lead after one quarter. Falls led 36-14 at the half, but a 6-0 run by Hubbard in the last two minutes of period three made it 46-30.

A 7-0 run to start the final quarter quickly put the game out of reach at 53-30 and Newton Falls added insult to injury by holding Hubbard without a field goal (in 14 attempts) in period four.

As for those Newton Falls shooting statistics, the Tigers shot 68 percent (23-of-34, 6-of-9 on 3-pointers) from the floor, compared to Hubbard’s 19 percent (9-of-48).

“Our team was very focused on following the game plan at both ends of the floor, and they did a nice job executing,” Sembach said. “On top of that I thought we did a great job rebounding the basketball and not giving them second chances.”

The Tigers held a 32-17 edge on the boards, led by 6-foot-11 junior Marcus Fowler with seven rebounds (and three blocks) and Jae Leeworthy with six.

For the Eagles and coach Rick Fox, it was a game to forget.

“That’s what I told them. We got beat by 35 points, but the nice thing about playing in a league is you play them again and they have to come to our place,” he said. “I said we walk out this door, we forget the game, we get on the bus and go get ready for Girard on Friday. The season’s not over, the chase for the league’s not over. We’ve just got to get ready to play.

“It was frustrating because I know we’re a better team than what we displayed out there,” Fox continued. “We just weren’t aggressive the way we wanted to be, Coach Sembach had a great game plan against us, and I’m sure he knows we’re struggling from the 3-point line.”

Senior guard Cameron McCleary led Falls with 19 points, Leeworthy had 14 and Fowler and Tamir Grogan added eight each. Bobby Thompson scored nine and grabbed six rebounds for Hubbard.

“Marcus only scored eight points tonight but I thought he played a solid game both covering the middle on defense, blocking shots, rebounding the ball,” Sembach said. “And even offensively, he did a very good job of passing the ball.

“I can’t say enough about McCleary. With [Todd] Medallis out, Cameron has got to be on the floor all 32 minutes and he gets hounded and hounded and hounded but he just takes care of the ball.”

Sembach said the margin of victory was a surprise.

“They are a very good team and it won’t be like that when we go to their place, we know that,” he said. “They are as good as anybody we play.”