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Ursuline starts fast and earns return trip to regional
By Doug Chapin
MINERAL RIDGE
One doesn’t often see a team win a girls basketball district championship without scoring a field goal in the third quarter.
But that was the situation on Saturday as Ursuline High built a 42-20 halftime lead and held off South Range High, 62-46, in the Division III tournament at Mineral Ridge High.
The Irish (16-7) will face Orrville (20-4) on Tuesday at 8 p.m. at Cuyahoga Falls High in a regional semifinal. The district title was the second straight for Ursuline which lost to Smithville a year ago in the regional semifinal.
“That’s as good a half of basketball as we’ve played, and it came on the biggest stage we’ve been on this season,” Ursuline coach Sean Durkin said. “You couldn’t have asked for anything more than that first half.”
Ursuline made its first six shots in jumping ahead 16-2.
South Range committed a turnover on four straight possessions during an 11-0 Irish run.
The Raiders (21-3) closed to within 16-10, but Ursuline put together a 10-0 run in the last 1:30 of the period for a 26-10 edge. The margin was never less than 15 in the second quarter.
“Our ability to knock shots down in the first half was huge. That was our biggest output of the year for a half, we just jumped on them,” Durkin said. “I don’t think they knew what hit them, and I was very surprised how well we shot, too.”
Ursuline had good balance in scoring, getting 15 points from Aurielle Irizarry, 14 from Courtney Powell, 13 from Ja’Niece Whitfield and 11 from Sydney Beasley. Powell also had nine rebounds and two blocked shots and Irizarry contributed three assists and three steals.
Samantha Smith led South Range (21-3) with 18 points. Emily Seman had eight points and seven rebounds.
South Range coach Wayne Johnson said, “We wanted to come out and just play, but we were a little nervous and they hit their first four or five shots.
“They had some open looks, but they also made some tough shots,” Johnson said. “I thought we played pretty good defense, they just made shots.”
The Irish shot 62 percent (16-for-26) from the floor in the first half. Despite a 0-for-7 shooting performance in the third quarter, Ursuline still led 46-33 despite a 13-4 edge for South Range in the third quarter.
“We talked a little bit at halftime about the situation. We didn’t care what the final score was, we wanted to understand clock and situation,” Durkin said. “They had some chances to get it into single digits. We wanted to take some time in a couple of situations and as long as we come out with the W, I’m fine with that.”
The Raiders scored the first bucket of period four to close within 46-35, but that was as close as they came.
“We kept after it, in the third quarter we made up some ground, but being down 22 at half, that’s a big deficit,” Johnson said. “We showed a lot of heart though in the second half.”
Durkin said, “This season has been a work in progress. We started kind of slow, we played a very difficult schedule and went through some growing pains. “We thought at the end of the regular season we were playing our best basketball, which was our goal. That’s what we wanted to be doing and it has carried us through the district tournament.”
South Range will lose six seniors from this squad.
“We had great senior leadership. All six of them were there from the first day in the spring,” Johnson said. “They’re good leaders, good kids. They won 21 games, that’s quite an accomplishment. They played as a team and they all bought into that.”