Ursuline overcomes slow start to down East

January 22, 2011 at 12:06a.m.

By Doug chapin

Youngstown

After a slow start, the Ursuline High boys basketball team gradually pulled away from East and had three players score at least 17 points in posting a 64-49 boys basketball victory Friday night in the Ursuline gym.

The Irish (8-3) led 14-13 after one quarter and the game was tied 19-19 midway through the second quarter.

Ursuline opened up a 31-25 lead at halftime and used an 18-10 third quarter to lead 49-35 after three.

The lead eventually reached 21 before the Panthers (1-9) scored the final six points of the game.

“The first quarter they tried to take the tempo out of the game because we have size, which was smart,” Ursuline coach Keith Gunther said. “And then they used a 2-2-1 press against us, basically any time we got a rebound, to slow us down, which was smart on their part.

“They kept the game close in the first half,” Gunther said. “In the second half, we went man-to-man and limited their shots,

“But the big kid [Lee Johnson] hurt us still,” Gunther said. “He got offensive rebounds, he was tough around the bucket. We kind of took the guards out of the game, they didn’t score a lot, but the big kid made some buckets.”

Johnson, a 6-foor-4 senior, had a monster game inside against Ursuline’s taller players, scoring 21 points and grabbing 14 rebounds.

Joe Villanueva added nine points to the East attack.

DeVonte Jenkins led Ursuline with 20 points and 11 rebounds. Khiree Gregory had 18 points and seven assists and Ryan Strollo scored 17 points, including 5-for-11 shooting from the 3-point line.

“I thought Strollo opened up the game a little bit hitting some threes,” Gunther said. “We got points inside from Jenkins and Strollo hit some from outside and Khiree got some penetration, and we upped the score a little bit.

“But it still felt like it was a ball game, we kept letting them hang around,” Gunther said. “It’s one of those games where you come in and a team doesn’t have a great record and your kids relax. You can’t be that way.”

Atrim Smith added seven points and seven rebounds.

Gunther said he is pleased how his team has improved during the first half of the season.

“We’re a thousand times better than we were at the beginning of the season,” he said.