It’s Cats & Cards in district semis

By Joe Scalzo | March 6, 2010 at 12:09a.m.

By joe Scalzo

boardman

At halftime of Friday’s game, Struthers High boys basketball coach Joe Savko grabbed a marker, walked over to the dry erase board inside the locker room and wrote “You got what you deserved.”

Sixteen inspired minutes later, the Wildcats again got what they deserved, earning a trip to the district semifinals with a 63-54 win over Hubbard in a Division II sectional final at Boardman High School.

“We came out in the second half and I’ve got to commend Adam Ryczaj,” Savko said of his junior center, who scored all 15 of his points in the second half. “There was a three minute span to start the third quarter where he just gave his body up, diving on the floor, diving for loose balls, tipping balls out, playing defense, stepping in front of guys. ... He got us sparked.

“Then, eventually, we started making shots, which is our strong point.”

Sophomore Jake Jacubec hit three huge 3-pointers in the third quarter as the Wildcats outscored Hubbard 25-8 over the eight-minute stretch, turning a 23-15 halftime deficit into a 40-31 lead they never relinquished.

Struthers (19-2) will meet Cardinal Mooney (16-5) on Wednesday night in a matchup of two of the area’s best teams — and two of the area’s best student sections. The Cardinals defeated Ravenna 82-56 in the opener.

Mooney’s students adding a little spice to the rivalry by sitting with Hubbard’s students during the first three quarters of Friday’s second game, moving to the opposite side of the gym to do so.

When the Cardinal students started leaving after the third quarter, Struthers’ section started chanting “Where is Mooney?” Then, when Mooney’s remaining students left the gym, the Wildcat fans started cheering “We don’t like you.”

“That should be fun to watch,” Savko said of the dueling student sections. “Mooney’s got a good team and they’ve got a good following. Their kids love them and our kids love our players.”

Junior Nate Jacubec scored 19 points for Struthers, which had a 13-day layoff between their last regular season game and Friday’s contest. Jake Jacubec finished with 14.

Hubbard (14-8) got 17 points from junior Mike Lopuchovsky, 15 points from senior Tylor Loveless and 12 from senior Chase Myers.

The Eagles never fully recovered from the midseason loss of senior forward Kurtis Drummond, who suffered a knee injury.

Mooney entered the opener coming off a weeklong layoff and it showed ... for the first five minutes.

With his team leading 14-10 midway through the first quarter, coach Chris Kohl called timeout to settle his team down.

“I just said, ‘We’re over our jitters, we haven’t played in awhile, let’s get into a rhythm,’” Kohl said.

Mooney outscored the Ravens 8-2 the rest of the way, then opened up a 23-point halftime lead. Ravenna never got within 20 points in the second half.

“We thought we could dictate the tempo and get a lot of steals,” said Kohl, whose team forced 26 turnovers, including 18 in the first half. “We try to promote everything going through our defense.”

Jeff Chahine scored 19 points to lead Mooney, while Chuck Gruber had 13 and Danny Reese and Pat DePizzo each added 11.

Stephen Wilmington scored 16 points for Ravenna (11-11), while Joshua Miller and Jermaine Justice each added 13.

Portage County teams went 0-3 in sectional finals this week at Boardman, with Southeast and Streetsboro losing on Wednesday.