Maplewood wins first district crown since 1985 season

By JOHN KOVACH

kovach@vindy.com

WARREN

The 25-year drought is over.

For the first time since 1985, the Maplewood High boys basketball team is going to a regional tournament.

And the Rockets did it in colorful, come-from-behind style in a Division IV district final Friday night at Warren Harding gym.

Trailing by 13 points, 36-23, in the third quarter, Maplewood rallied to overcome Mathews, 50-46, to win a berth in next week’s regional meet at Canton Memorial Fieldhouse.

The Rockets (18-5) will face Bedford Chanel Tuesday in a regional semifinal at 8 p.m. Chanel advanced Thursday night with a 59-50 win over Lutheran West in the Garfield Heights district tournament final.

“We averaged 14 wins over the [25-year] span but we just never got a good tournament draw or performed well in the tournaments,” said Maplewood’s eighth-season coach, Matt Urchek, a former Rockets player.

Urchek was a junior member of the 1991-92 Maplewood team that went 20-0 in the regular season.

“The program has been pretty good over the span and we have had only one or two losing seasons,” he said. “And all of our coaches have been from Maplewood, and we have used the same system.”

The Rockets turned the tide against Mathews (18-5) behind balanced scoring and by attacking the basket.

Ben Moser had 13 points, including seven in the final quarter, while Tom Bottorff added 10 and Justin Fenstermaker and Alex Doneyko nine apiece. Fenstermaker had five of his points in the last quarter.

Moser’s goal that made it 47-44 provided the margin of victory, while John Moy’s basket boosted the lead to 49-44.

But the game still went down to the waning seconds.

Shane Link’s two free throws with 1:15 pulled Mathews within 49-46, but the Mustangs shortly after missed a couple of shots.

Then Dan Wagner of Maplewood made a free throw with 7.5 seconds left to rebuild the lead to 50-46, while Doneyko stole the ball near the buzzer to seal the win.

“Fenstermaker picked us up in the last quarter,” said Urchek. “We began attacking the basket.

“Mathews had done a good job previously collapsing back toward the basket, and the driving lanes were not open. But Moser is a good athlete and he began attacking the basket and dumping the ball off to Fenstermaker underneath for points.”

Chris Morgan had 13 points, Cole O’Dell 11 and Corey Lumley nine to pace Mathews.

O’Dell had 11 of his points and Morgan seven in the second quarter, as the Mustangs rallied from a 19-7 deficit to take a 28-21 halftime lead, and then pad that margin to 36-23 before the Rockets battled back.

Coach Ron Price of Mathews said that it was a “game of streaks.

“[Maplewood] streaked early and then we had a streak later. Then they had a streak at the right time.”

Price, whose Mustangs split a pair of regular-season games with the Rockets, said his team couldn’t score at crunch time.

“[Maplewood] made some key shots and our shots went in and out. It’s that simple. They made the key shots.”

Plus, “They had a strong game driving to the hoop.”