McDonald romps; Lake Christian wins

By John Bassetti

STRUTHERS — It was such a lopsided sectional championship that the game had to be stopped momentarily while a piece of urethane coating on the Wildcat logo at center circle on the Struthers Fieldhouse floor had to be peeled off.

A blistering blowout, maybe?

Top-seeded McDonald remained unbeaten at 21-0 after a 62-36 win over Lowellville in a boys Division IV sectional final Saturday.

In Saturday’s first game, Lake Center Christian disposed of Western Reserve, 41-39.

McDonald will play Lake Center (16-6) in a district semifinal on Thursday at 7 p.m.

“It kind of snowballed on them for a little while,” McDonald coach Jeff Rasile said. “It should have been put away a little earlier, but we missed too many lay-ups. Overall, I thought we played pretty solid defense.”

The game was McDonald’s first after a two-week layoff.

“Once we settled down, we started to do some good things,” Rasile said. “Too many turnovers though. We’ve got to cut down on those.”

Of his team’s matchup with Lake Center, Rasile said, “They have good guard play. They were down seven or eight with about five minutes left and they came back. That’s the sign of a winning team. It’s going to be tough, but they’re all tough at this point.”

Lance Ronghi had 13 points and Justin Rota 12 for McDonald, which, otherwise, had balanced scoring among players in single digits.

Patrick Minnie’s 11 points paced Lowellville (11-11), which fell behind by as many as 35 at 57-22.

Western Reserve had a 19-13 halftime lead, but Lake Center had a 9-0 run to start the third quarter.

Points by Justin Lude, Zach White, Jake Barker and Matt Hubbs put Reserve up, 34-27.

That’s when Jesse Coblentz’s tough board work and a rash of points by Shane Byler turned the tide.

“There were a couple of loose balls that we ended up getting our hands on and a couple defensive rebounds that helped us make plays at the other end,” Lake Center coach Brad Beun said.

Western Reserve coach Steve Miller said that several missed lay-ups were crucial.

“You can’t miss those opportunities and struggle at the line. When you’re not hitting free throws and you’re not making your lay-ups and you’re in a defensive struggle like we were, you have a hard time winning.”

The Blue Devils (12-11) made only three free throws to eight by Lake Center Christian.

“With the way they defended and the way they played us, buckets and shots were going to be hard to come by,” Miller said. “I knew we were going to have to attack. They made some of our players get out of their comfort zone and do some things they didn’t want to do and they did a great job of keeping Justin [Lude] out of the paint which forced him to settle for 12- or 15-footers.

“We did penetrate with some of our guards, and when we did get one or two to finish, that’s when we open up the lead,” Miller said. But then we struggled to score for two or three minutes by missing so many lay-ups. That’s when they managed to come down and get to the foul line and make easy buckets on offensive rebounds. That was the difference.”

bassetti@vindy.com