Lisbon’s pressure stops S.R.

By Chuck Housteau

SALEM — Lisbon High senior Anthony Lee has been through all the hard times suffered by the Blue Devils basketball program the last couple of years.

The Devils went 0-21 last year and had only won four games in 20 tries this year, including two losses to South Range earlier this season.

Tuesday night made all those struggles worthwhile for Lee and his teammates, who stunned South Range 60-44 in a Division III sectional tournament game at Salem High School.

“This win was huge for us,” said Lee who tallied a game-high 18 points and eight rebounds. “I can’t even put it into words.

“We’ve been working our tails off all week and this was a great win for us. It was a true team effort.”

The Devils (5-16) will have to pull off another upset on Friday if they want to continue their postseason run. Lisbon has to go up against No. 1 seed Campbell Memorial at 8 p.m.

“I’m so excited I don’t know what to say,” said Lisbon coach Dave Crismon. “We had just made up our minds all week that we had nothing to lose and everything to gain.

“We just laid it all out there.”

The Devils had already lost to South Range (7-14) twice this year, 65-43 on the road and 56-49 at home.

“We decided to sell out and just put pressure on them the whole game and see what happened,” Crismon said.

The strategy worked to perfection as the Devils opened up a 16-4 lead by pressuring the Raiders into eight first quarter turnovers.

Lee scored 12 of his 18 points in the quarter as the Devils raced out to an 11-2 lead before the Raiders knew what hit them.

“Their defensive pressure forced us to take some quick shots and we couldn’t get any of them to fall because we weren’t getting our feet set,” said South Range coach Dave Purins. “We got ourselves in a hole that we couldn’t get out of.

“We just didn’t execute tonight. We weren’t patient with the ball and we didn’t finish.”

Errors continued to plague the Raiders as they handed Lisbon several easy shots with 13 more turnovers in the second quarter.

When the Raiders did get off shots they couldn’t get them to fall. South Range made just 4-of-27 (15 percent) in the first half as Lisbon opened up a 31-15 lead.

Lisbon started the third quarter with a 12-4 run that put the game out of reach at 43-19.

Kyle Seaver led a late Raiders’ run as he scored six of his 14 points in the fourth period but South Range could get no closer than 53-40 late in the game.

Todd Padurean also scored 18 points for Lisbon while William Bowyer added 12 points and pulled down eight rebounds.

The tournament continues tonight with sectional championships. Tonight, a doubleheader starting at 6:30 p.m. will have East Palestine playing Ursuline in the opener, followed by Crestview against Waterloo. On Friday United will play St.Thomas Aquinas followed by the Lisbon-Campbell game.