Devils do it with defense

By JOHN BASSETTI

bassetti@vindy.com

STRUTHERS

McDonald coach Jeff Rasile started popping Motrin a few minutes into the game, thinking he’d ward off a tension headache, and, in the end, it worked.

Maybe it wasn’t the pills, but, rather, the players, who helped bring major relief with a 46-44 win over Youngstown Christian in the Division IV district championship game at Struthers Fieldhouse Friday night.

Although deficient on the offensive side, the game was heavy on the action side with plenty of movement for 32 minutes.

That may have been the elixir for Rasile.

“We told our kids that it would probably come down to a four-quarter game and we don’t lose those very often,” the coach said. “We really stumped them with that defense,” he said of a three man-to-man and two zone alignment against Youngstown Christian, that limited the Eagles substantially.

When McDonald resorted to a press in the last quarter it caused the Eagles to mishandle the ball.

After scoring 20 first-quarter points, Youngstown Christian had quarters in which it scored 9, 8 and 7.

The Eagles (21-2) were the No. 2 seeded team, while McDonald continued unbeaten at 23-0.

McDonald will play eight Zanesville Rosecrans or Shadyside at the Canton Fieldhouse on Tuesday at 6:15.

Rasile said holding Youngstown Christian — the team that stopped McDonald’s 22-0 record in the district final last year — to 15 second-half points showed an outstanding effort.

Locking down Casey Carroll with one-on-one coverage and keeping him off the boards resulted in a dearth of offensive rebounds for the Eagles.

“Not many people, outside of ourselves, gave us a shot in this one,” said Rasile, whose team was led by Matthias Tayala with 15 points, Devin Bansberg with 10 and Nick Rota with nine.

Bansberg and Rota were two of the Blue Devils making a big contribution, with Bansberg finding the opening lanes to drive for points or to draw a foul and Rota to bang his way inside against the taller Carroll and Anthony Walker.

Bansberg, too, was ripe for sacrifice. The scrapping player had to leave the game with 1:40 remaining after sustaining a deep cut on his left cheekbone.

With his team ahead, 44-42, it was no time to be without a visible leader.

What was he doing in the locker room while getting stitches for bleeding.

“I was yelling at the training, telling her to hurry,” he said. “I was yelling at one of our coaches, saying that I needed to get out there for my team.”

Bansberg was injured in a scramble to get the ball, a play on which he was called for a foul.

“I was with a teammate and we were going all-out for a ball and I got the worst of it,” he said.

When the bandaged player returned with 14.5 seconds left, he eventually ended up at the foul line, but missed the first of a one-and-one attempt.

Carroll, who got almost all of McDonald’s 10 misses in a 5-for-15 effort on the night, grabbed the rebound with 6.5 second remaining and got the ball to Victor Shaw, who missed a jumper from the foul line as he fell flat on his back as time expired.

“McDonald ran for 32 minutes and we had a couple sputters when we didn’t execute well,” said Youngstown Christian coach Dolph Carroll. “They kept coming at us and we didn’t handle a couple situations very well. We had our chances, but they did a great job against us.”

John Pecchia had 13 points for the Eagles, whose district title game win over then-No. 1 McDonald in 2009 was also by two points.