McDonald passes test at SR

By Greg Gulas

sports@vindy.com

GREENFORD

The McDonald boys basketball team seems to be everyone’s Super Bowl right now, leaving little margin for error if they expect to keep their regular season win streak intact.

Matthias Tayala scored a game-high 25 points and the McDonald defense flexed its muscles in the second period as the Blue Devils defeated South Range 73-65 on Tuesday night.

The Blue Devils (5-0) ran their regular-season winning streak to 48 games.

“You have to give South Range credit. They are an excellent team, picked to win the ITCL upper tier and, quite frankly, an up-and-coming program,” said McDonald coach Jeff Rasile.

“Our effort tonight was there but our basketball smarts was not,” he added. “They made some runs tonight but to our credit, were able to answer those runs.”

The teams were tied 15-all after the first period.

Tayala then scored eight points in the second quarter and Nick Rota added six of his 17 points on the night, as Blue Devils outscored South Range 21-8 for a 36-23 lead at the intermission.

It was a lead that Tayala was happy to see.

“We had a lot of unnecessary turnovers tonight and missed some scoring opportunities, but ran with the ball like we want to and that was a good sign,” said Tayala.

Nine points by Tayala, and six by both Brandon Pluchinsky and Mike Thorpe of South Range saw each team score 21 points in the third quarter as the Blue Devils held on to a 57-44 lead.

In the final eight minutes, a 3-pointer by Pluchinsky at the 2:23 mark cut McDonald’s lead to 66-59, but that was the closest that South Range (4-1) could get as they suffered their first defeat of the campaign.

“I told the team after the game that this was a great experience for us heading into league play,” said South Range coach Dave Purins.

“No matter what chemistry or team we have on the floor, we still need to work hard each and every possession,” he added.

“Turnovers hurt us tonight and we didn’t capitalize on the scoring opportunities that were presented to us.

“We played faster than we needed to at times, but we’ll learn from this and be ready the next time out,” Purins said.

Neither team could capitalize at the free throw line as the Blue Devils were just 16 of 27 and the Raiders were 14 of 29 from the charity stripe.

The 73 points was the lowest offensive output by McDonald this season.