Soup City plays gritty, rallies to win district

By Joe Scalzo

The Campbell Memorial Red Devils won their second district title in four years, dropping Waterloo 76-73 at Salem High.

SALEM — As he watched Waterloo senior senior Tom Herchek repeatedly make “did-you-just-see-that?” fadeaway 3-pointers and a senior-led Vikings team roll up an 18-point lead in less than nine minutes of Friday’s Division III district final, Campbell High boys basketball coach Brian Danilov looked like a man who just got the role of the opposing coach in a remake of “Hoosiers.”

“I was wondering if they were ever gonna miss a shot,” said Danilov. “Oh, God. Shooting well? That’s a freaking understatement.

“That’s like saying [Bill] Gates got a lot of money.”

As the Vikings kept cashing in — if you’ve seen “Hoosiers,” picture Jimmy Chitwood and you’ve got Herchek — Campbell looked emotionally and physically bankrupt, cutting the deficit to a mere 17 with one minute left in the first half.

Then, hope.

The Red Devils scored the final five points of the quarter and (crazy as it sounds) went into the Salem High locker room feeling pretty good about being down 12.

“Then our whole goal was to win the first three minutes of the third quarter,” said Danilov.

He settled for the first 21‚Ñ2, as the Red Devils used one of those amazingly effective 15-2 runs to cut the deficit to one, 45-44.

Just like that, the Red Devils were in a ballgame. Over the next 131‚Ñ2 minutes, they took the Vikings’ best shot and junior Jerah’me Williams threw in more than a few of his own.

When it was over, Campbell had a 76-73 victory, Williams had 36 points and Danilov had his fifth career district title and second in four years.

“I tell you what — I think it was a game that was played out right,” said Danilov, whose team will meet No. 1 Smithville (24-0) in a regional semifinal at 8 p.m. Wednesday at the Canton Fieldhouse. “You expect a game like this. Good teams compete every possession.”

As always, Danilov was loathe to single out one player, but the capacity crowd will remember Williams’ duel with Herchek (who finished with 27), which brought back memories of Jermaine Richardson besting D’Aundray Brown and Ursuline on the same court two years ago.

Williams — a quick, smooth-shooting and gutsy guard who stands 5-foot-7 “in three pairs of socks,” to quote Danilov — was a role-playing freshman starter on that 2007 Campbell team.

On Friday, he was the best player on the floor, scoring 16 straight Campbell points over a five-minute stretch in the second half to keep Campbell in the game.

“I just felt I had to take over for my team and the shots were falling,” he said. “I didn’t want to go home. We lost [to Ursuline] here last year and we felt we had some unfinished business.”

When asked about Williams’ development, Danilov said: “There’s three things you can’t teach: height, speed and experience. Two the man upstairs gotta give you and one you’ve got to earn.”

After scouting Campbell, Waterloo coach John Herchek knew his team was facing a quickness mismatch at every position, so he knew his players had to play off a step or two on defense, hoping the Red Devils would struggle from the outside.

At first it worked, as the Vikings (21-2) — who set a school record for wins and shared the league title with Div. II district finalist Streetsboro — played an almost perfect first quarter to take a 26-13 lead.

When asked what he was thinking at that point, Williams said, “That it was gonna be a long day. We were a little bit shaken, but we came back OK.”

Campbell eventually heated up and took the lead for good with just under four minutes left and Williams sealed it with two free throws with 10.4 seconds left to make it 76-70.

“We didn’t have any answer for Williams,” said John Herchek. “We knew he was a good player, but we didn’t realize he could shoot it that well.

“But hey, our kids had a great year. This team is so close, which makes it so hard. When you see them sitting in the locker room crying their eyes out, you realize how difficult it is for them to end their basketball careers.”

scalzo@vindy.com