Cardinals grounded

By John Kovach

Streetsboro

advances

to battle

Poland

BOARDMAN — The Streetsboro High basketball team knows what to expect when it plays Poland Saturday for the Division II district championship at 6 p.m. at the Boardman High gym.

“We scrimmaged against them in the fall,” said Streetsboro coach Todd Muckleroy after his Rockets zoomed past Mooney, 79-60, in a district semifinal Wednesday. “We did well and learned a lot. We know what we have to do.

“Poland likes to bring pressure and they defend like we like to do,” Muckleroy said. “We have to take care of the ball. We can’t have multiple turnovers. They have shown past multiple zone traps and they get steals and layups and 3-pointers

“We have to get in front of them on their shots, especially against [Ben] Donlow and [Niko] Fatimus.”

Against Mooney, Streetsboro (20-2) was led by: Robert Wilson with 18 points and 10 rebounds; Carrington Hanna with 17 points, including four 3-point goals; and Malcolm Brooks with 16 points and seven rebounds.

The Rockets made 29-for-60 (48.3 percent) from the field, including 7-for-15 (46.7 percent) from 3-point range, and enjoyed a big 34-18 rebounding advantage.

Mooney (10-13) found it difficult to handle Streetsboro’s pressure defense, strong rebounding and nifty shooting. The Cardinals fell behind by 41-23 at the half and 59-37 after three periods, and never seriously contended except very early in the game.

Mooney coach Chris Kohl thought that his team got off to a nice start in the game, but then was doomed by mistakes.

“We were doing some real nice things at the beginning,” Kohl said. “We had open players taking open shots. We were penetrating and getting into the flow of the game.

“Then Hanna hit some big 3s and broke our back,” Kohl said. “We gave up five points within only six seconds of the end of the half.”

Muckelroy said, “We picked up the pressure and we were squeezing their driving lanes. They were not shooting well and we protected the driving lanes.

“Carrington hits big shots when we needed it,” Muckelroy said. “Brooks did a great job rebounding and around the rims with putbacks. They both played a great game.”

“Our rebounding was the difference. They were not getting second and third shots,” Muckelroy said. “We got our momentum going after the first half.”

Mooney was led by Eddie Reese with 13 points and John Stoops with 11 and four rebounds.

Cy Schuster added nine points — all in the second half and eight in the last quarter — while Donald D’Alesio had four points and as many rebounds.

Kohl called Hanna “a nice player.”

But he admitted, “We took some bad shots. It was our mistakes and their taking the ball away [that hurt us]. We were taking bad shots.”

And also conceded that the Cardinals were no match for the Rockets on the boards.

“They did a nice job of rebounding. They did a good job of boxing guys out and keeping us off the boards,” Kohl said.

And the Cardinals also found points scarce, making only 22-for-57 (38.6 percent) from the field and 10-for-21 (47.6 percent) from the foul line.

kovach@vindy.com