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Illness, McKinley KO Boardman
By Doug Chapin
BOARDMAN
Sometimes your opponent can take you out of the type of basketball game you want to play.
Sometimes injuries force a team to alter its plans.
When it’s a combination of the two, the results usually are not positive.
Such was the case for the Boardman High boys basketball team which went into its Federal League game against Canton McKinley without starters Dayne Hammnond and Deion Harris, just the latest of a long list of injuries the Spartans have been battling.
McKinley (3-1, 2-0 Federal) was coming off a loss Tuesday to Warren Harding and the Bulldogs shook off the Spartans’ valiant effort on the way to a 73-41 victory.
“We’ve been battling injuries left and right. We’ve had nine guys miss more than a week of practice since we opened,” Boardman coach Dan McKeown said. “Injuries have hit us hard and we’re kind of hodgepodging players out there.
“Some of our younger guys are growing up, we played a couple sophomores a lot of minutes tonight. That will make us stronger down the stretch.”
Boardman (1-3, 0-3 Federal) prefers an up-tempo game but the Spartans realized that probably was futile against the long and athletic Bulldogs.
“That’s the way [up-tempo] we played our first three games and that’s our style of play,” McKeown said. “But we don’t want to play into their hands, we’re not going to beat them at that tempo, not with the size limitations we had with two starters out of the lineup who are two of our better rebounders. We wanted to slow the game down, hang around and stay close.”
The strategy worked — for a while. Boardman trailed 14-13 after one quarter and was behind 24-19 until the Bulldogs scored four points in the final 11 seconds of the half for a 28-19 halftime lead.
The hosts closed to within 34-27 before an 18-4 McKinley run in the final 5:30 of the third quarter opened a 52-31 advantage.
“The injuries also affect our conditioning and you could see that in the second half,” McKeown said. “We’ve had guys who miss a week and they’re not quite in basketball shape yet. We are making strides in the right direction.”
T.J. Irving and Jamar Steverson scored nine points each for the Spartans and Nico DiIanni and Brian Butts added eight points each. Irving also grabbed six rebounds.
Devaugntah Williams scored 28 points for McKinley.
Despite the problems, McKeown can see positives in the Spartans’ play.
“We’re playing well as a team, we’re sharing the basketball,” he said. “Until tonight we’ve really taken care of the basketball, we haven’t had a high turnover rate.”