Columbiana settles score with United; Blinsky is tops

By Chuck Housteau

The Clippers gave up too many easy baskets the first time the teams met.

COLUMBIANA — Columbiana High’s Kevin Blinsky tried to put an exclamation point on the Clippers’ Inter Tri-County Tier One win over United with a slam dunk with 1:30 remaining.

Blinsky earned the right by scoring 25 points and grabbing 14 rebounds Tuesday as the Clippers avenged an early season loss to the Eagles with a 75-66 victory.

The 6-foot 2 senior soared barely above the rim on a breakaway following a steal and pushed the ball through the basket for his first slam dunk in a game.

It wasn’t a thing of beauty but it mirrored the foul-plagued, fast-paced game between two teams fighting to stay in second place behind East Palestine in the Tier One standings.

“It was somewhat of a dunk,” Blinsky said of the final two points he tallied. “I was pretty jacked.”

So was his coach, Eric Whitmer, after watching his team play one of its best games of the season.

“We actually put together about four pretty good quarters of basketball,” Whitmer said. “A lot of guys stepped up and everybody did their jobs.

“We talked about having to do a better job inside the three-point line on defense after the last time we played them and we did that tonight.

“We gave up too many easy baskets the last time we played them.”

Columbiana (9-3, 7-1) lost to United 91-75 in the first encounter.

In addition to Blinsky’s big night, the Clippers got huge games from Tyler Denmead who had 17 points and his bother Travis who tallied 13 points.

Josh Harold also scored nine points.

Columbiana came out quick and opened up a 12-5 lead as the Clippers guards attacked the basket and defensively a mixture of defenses including several zone defenses threw off United’s game.

“Columbiana played a great defensive game,” United coach Mike Ward said. “We only scored 66 points which is below our average because they sorta took us out of our game by playing a lot of zone.

“We didn’t execute real well in it and didn’t shoot the ball well.”

United (6-3, 5-2) made just 23 of 75 shots and struggled to stay close to the Clippers despite making a run late in the first quarter to close the gap to 24-20 after eight minutes.

Columbiana steadily pulled away as they shot nearly 50 percent from the field by attacking the baskets and scoring on a lot of layups and putbacks.

“That’s what we do well,” Whitmer said. “We have a lot of guys that can attack the basket and finish.

“Tyler Denmeade and Kevin Blinsky in particular did extremely well with that tonight.”

United tried to make one last late run at the Clippers after following behind 60-45.

Zack Taylor who scored nine of his 24 points in the fourth quarter as the Eagles cut the lead 60-53 but could get no closer.

Jeremy Walker also played a nice game for the Eagles as he scored 17 points and grabbed 18 rebounds.

Jason Ramus added 10 points for United.