Gonzalez, Williams power Harding past Timken

CANTON REPOSITORY

CANTON — Rick Hairston wants his Canton Timken High team to play at a frenzied pace — full-court, nonstop high school boys basketball.

On Saturday night at Memorial Field House, the Trojans instead looked frazzled as poor shooting, turnovers and a swarming Warren Harding defense left Timken with its first loss of the season, 65-50.

“We tried to mix up the defenses and keep them off balance,” Harding coach Steve Arnold said after his undefeated squad used a 2-3, man, 1-3-1 and full-court trap at times.

The Raiders forced the Trojans to work for their shots and Timken looked out of sync in the half court, too often settling for long 3-pointers and contested drives.

“Sometimes a team that presses doesn’t like to be pressed,” Arnold said of the showdown of the unbeatens. “We do what we do, be aggressive offensively and defensively.”

Timken shot 17-of-52 (33 percent) and committed 22 turnovers as Harding had arms everywhere to disrupt the Trojans offense.

“They are long, athletic and well-coached,” Hairston said. “We got out-worked, out-coached, the whole thing tonight.”

Harding (5-0) held a 44-25 edge in rebounding, including 11 from Tre’ Brown and seven from Angel Gonzalez. Gonzalez also scored 18 points, Fred Williams had 17 and Brown had 10 for the Raiders.

Cory Porrini and Jehvon Clarke both scored 19 points for Timken but needed a combined 36 shots to do it. Porrini pulled down a team-high nine rebounds, not what most coaches are looking for from their 6-foot-1 point guard.

“We didn’t do a good job keeping them off the glass,” Hairston said. “Every time we looked up, one of their players was putting the ball back in.”

Both teams shot just 10-of-29 in the first half as Harding took a 29-26 lead at the break. Harding started heating up, though, while Timken (4-1) stayed ice cold.

“I told our kids at halftime that we didn’t shoot well but the constants in basketball are defense and rebounding,” Arnold said. “If we can do those two things, we’ll always be in the game.”

A 7-0 run to end the third quarter left Harding up, 38-31. An 8-0 run that included back-to-back steals and lay-ups for the Raiders midway through the fourth closed it out as Harding led, 59-41, with 2:46 to play.

“We’re long,” Arnold said. “We can get our arms in the passing lanes. We chart deflections. It tells us how often we are getting our hands on the ball. It’s important for us.”

While Timken was shooting jumpers, Harding was driving to the rim. The Raiders finished 11-of-17 on free throws. The Trojans attempted just five while the game was still in doubt.

“We settled too much,” Hairston said. “We should have been going to the basket and getting to the foul line like they did.

“That’s why we schedule games like this, as a gauge for seeing how good a team we can be,” Hairston said. “Warren Harding is a top-five team in the state. We have a ways to go to get there.”