Kennedy Catholic stops Ursuline, 60-44

By Chuck Housteau

Eagles’ Aundra Jones had 18 points, 17 rebounds and 14 blocked shots against the Irish.

YOUNGSTOWN — Former South High star Marlon McGaughy had a bittersweet homecoming of sorts when he brought his Kennedy Catholic basketball team to his hometown to face Ursuline.

Despite the recent death of his father, Charles, McGaughy was able to enjoy a victory over his friend, Ursuline coach Keith Gunther, in front of many of his family and friends at the Irish gymnasium.

Kyle Randall poured in 24 points while Aundra Jones scored 18 points, grabbed 17 rebounds and blocked 14 Ursuline shots to lead the Golden Eagles to Friday’s 60-44 win over the Irish.

This was McGaughy’s first win over a Gunther team in four tries.

“It was like a homecoming tonight,” McGaughy said. “When you get a win against your friend, it’s kind of bittersweet.

“I’ve known Keith [Gunther] a long time and he has a great, well-coached team,” McGaughy said. “Tonight, their shots didn’t fall for them and our shots did.”

Kennedy Catholic (7-1) had too much Randall on the outside and too much Jones on the inside as the duo kept the Irish defenders on their heels much of the game and exposed a lot of Ursuline’s weaknesses.

“We lost our heads tonight,” Gunther said. “It was our worst competitive display of the season and I take full responsibility.

“We totally fell apart because things weren’t going well,” Gunther said. “I’ve got to fix it and I will by tournament time.”

The Irish struggled to shut down the Eagles offense and Ursuline couldn’t get anything going on the offensive end.

“They played a zone against us,” Gunther said. “We’re not a great explosive shooting team and we need to go inside to score and we didn’t do a good job.”

Jones continually blocked many of the Ursuline shot attempts or forced the Irish to take off-balanced shots.

“Jones is starting to come on lately,” said McGaughy of the 6-7 senior center. “This is his first real year of playing organized basketball and small colleges are starting to look at him.”

Randall on the other hand, is the engine of the Kennedy team.

The senior guard is being recruited by some of the top schools in the country including Stanford and Ivy League schools because of his grades.

Randall was nearly unstoppable as he led the Eagles in scoring and got the ball to Jones and his teammates for open shots.

Randall helped get the Eagles off to a 16-11 start by scoring seven points in the first quarter.

“Once we got behind we started to fall apart,” Gunther said. “We didn’t play our game and we had a tough time stopping Randall with the ball.”

Ursuline fell behind 32-18 at halftime and tried to make a run in the third quarter with a trapping zone defense that got the Irish as close to 10 points at 39-29.

Dominique Cole and Dale Peterman led the charge for Ursuline. Peterman scored 16 points, including eight in the fourth quarter while Cole added 15 points and five rebounds.

Ursuline struggled shooting the ball and was only 35 percent from the field. The Irish also struggled from the foul line where they connected on only six of 15 shots.

Phillip Kalkis chipped in with 10 points for Kennedy Catholic.