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LeBron’s alma mater overwhelms Ursuline
YOUNGSTOWN — Akron St.Vincent-St.Mary coach Dru Joyce told Ursuline coach Keith Gunther that this was his best team since the LeBron James era at the school.
Gunther told his team following a 78-44 drubbing at the hands of SVSM Saturday night at Ursuline that they would have to hold their composure and keep working because better things are ahead for his Irish.
Ursuline (5-5) suffered its fifth straight loss after opening the season with five wins.
“I told the kids our season could mirror the economy,” Gunther said. “I told them that with our schedule and with the adversity we’ve faced that things could get worse before it gets better.
“We’ve got a lot of young kids playing more and its good that they are getting to face this caliber of talent like they saw tonight,” Gunther said. “I still believe that we can become a good team by playoff time.”
Ursuline is still trying to rebuild its team after the dismissal of several key players and the Irish were playing without standout guard Dale Peterman who was on a football recruiting trip this weekend.
“Ursuline came limping into this game and it’s kind of unfortunate,” Joyce said. “They were without almost 50 percent of their offense and that’s tough to recover from.
“We knew they might be struggling and so we wanted to come at them right from the start and we were able to do that.”
SVSM scored the first 10 points of the game and opened up a 17-3 lead before closing out the first quarter with a 20-5 lead.
“They’re a great team no doubt about it,” Gunther said. “From the beginning to the end of the game and from top to bottom, they are good all around.
“I thought if we would have made some shots and free throws that we wouldn’t have beat them, but I think it could have been a much better ball game.”
SVSM continued to hammer at the Irish in the second period and they pretty much had the game put away with a 43-22 lead at the break.
The Irish (9-3) were led by freshman Lorenzo Cugini who scored all 11 of his points in the first half, including knocking down three 3-pointers.
Gugini led a contingent of 14 Akron scorers who tallied points.
DeVonte Beard and Michael Sampson added 11 points each.
“It was nice that we were able to run a lot of kids into the game,” Joyce said. “We have a lot of talented kids who look at you when they’re sitting with that ‘can I get in the game’ look.
“Tonight, we were able to get a lot of guys with meaningful minutes and that should help us [today] when we face a very talented Cleveland Benedictine team.”
Ursuline was led by senior Dominique Cole who scored 12 points. Sophomore Jordan Dubose added 12 points and six rebounds while sophomore DeVonte Jenkins finished with eight points and seven rebounds.
“We have to keep striving to get better by March when the tournament starts and that will be our goal the rest of the season,” Gunther. said. “Our young sophomores have to step up and continue to improve and we should have Peterman back now that all of his football recruiting trips are over.”