Tigers rebound past Struthers

Howland, coming off a
50-point loss, rolled to
a 57-35 win.

By CHUCK HOUSTEAU

VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT

STRUTHERS — After Howland’s 50-point loss to Poland earlier in the week, coach Don Andres gave his team the next day off.

Andres worked on the scouting report for Friday’s game with Struthers.

The cover page of the report asked, “How do we handle adversity?”

Andres found out what his team was made of and he liked the outcome as the Tigers bounced back with an impressive 57-36 road victory over Struthers.

“We came back to practice [Thursday] night and said it’s bounce-back time,” Andres said.

“We’re really happy with our effort tonight,” Andres added. “We played well on the road. We controlled the tempo, switched defenses and shot the ball really well as a team.”

The Tigers were lights-out shooting the basketball from the field.

Howland shooters nailed all five 3-point shot attempts and finished shooting 24-for-40 (60 percent).

Junior Drew Guido connected on 7-of-8 shots for 17 points, while Kyle Spense added 13 points and Jared Kirin had 10 points and 15 rebounds.

The Tigers were still playing without their leading scorer, Nathan Cope, who was out with an ankle injury.

“The key was that Struthers was doubling the ball and we were getting shots wide open,” Andres said. “They continued to do it and we continued to score.”

Guido said that he wasn’t really looking to score that much.

“I try to spread the ball around,” Guido said. “I just happened to get a lot of open looks and the shots were falling.

“We did a lot of shooting drills after the loss to Poland the other night.”

Howland began to take control from a 9-9 tie midway through the first quarter.

Leading 16-14 heading into the second period, Howland began its shooting barrage.

Over the next 21⁄2 quarters, the Tigers made 17-of-22 shots to open up a huge lead.

At halftime, Howland led 31-19 and by the end of the third quarter, the Tigers owned a 47-28 lead.

“Howland was hungry,” said first-year Struthers coach Joe Savko. “They definitely wanted this game more than us. They really did.

“We hit a couple shots early to keep us in the game but overall their size wore us down.”

Struthers, who plays with a lot of underclassmen got a strong game from Keith Karas who scored 13 points and grabbed five rebounds.

Sophomore Matt Durkin chipped in with 10 points.