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Unbeaten Poland defeats Springfield
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DOGS RUN: Poland’s David Baker completes a dunk while trailed by Springfield’s Tim Norris in the second quarter of the opening game in the Lariccia Family High School Basketball Series on Tuesday at the Covelli Centre. Baker had 14 points in the Bulldogs’s 85-49 win over the Tigers.
By GREG GULAS
Vindicator correspondent
YOUNGSTOWN — The Poland High boys basketball team had no trouble remaining unbeaten on Tuesday as the Bulldogs defeated Springfield, 85-49, for their ninth consecutive win of the campaign.
David Baker, Ben Donlow and Dom DeFelice each scored 14 points as the Bulldogs scored early and often.
It was teacher (Coach Ken Grisdale of Poland) going up against his star pupil (Eric Fender, coach of the Tigers), a game that Grisdale said he hated every minute of playing.
“I did not enjoy this at all,” Grisdale said. “Eric [Fender] is building something from the ground up at Springfield and they are going to be fine down the road.
“His dad and assistant, Tom, has been an important influence on me and I really learned a lot from him over the years so you can see why I didn’t enjoy this game one bit,” Grisdale said.
“We were out of sync the first three or four minutes of the game but then started to move the ball,” Grisdale said.
“We haven’t seen a zone yet this season so it was good for us to go up against that tonight,” Grisdale said. “We were able to find the open man and knock down some shots and that’s when we got going offensively.”
The Bulldogs scored the first nine points of the game, raced to a 17-2 lead and increased the margin to 23-6 after the first eight minutes of play.
They never trailed in the game.
DeFelice then hit three straight triples and Baker added eight points in the period as the Bulldogs outscored the Tigers, 28-13 in the second frame to forge a 51-19 halftime advantage.
“Poland has been phenomenal the past five or six years,” Eric Fender said. “Give them credit because they have a great senior group and will be very successful this year.
“Give our kids credit though because they never quit,” Fender said. “The one thing I would like for our program to model after Poland’s is their intensity.
“They might not always hit the shot, but they keep coming after you and never quit,” Fender said.
The Bulldogs increased their lead to 68-34 after three periods of play and with Jerry Lawman and DeFelice combining for three “treys” in the final frame, sealed the 36-point victory.
Ron Rogers, who canned four triples of his own, had a team-high 14 points for the Clippers, who fell to 4-6 on the season.