Ursuline escapes scare by Orrville

By Tom Williams

williams@vindy.com

CUYAHOGA FALLS

Two clutch free throws each by Courtney Powell and Aurielle Irizarry in the final 30 seconds have the Ursuline High girls basketball team one win away from the Irish’ third trip to state in eight seasons.

But Wednesday’s 50-46 victory over Orrville was not for the faint of heart.

The Irish (17-6) dominated the first half, cruising to a 34-16 lead as the Red Riders (20-5) wracked up more than their share of personal fouls.

But in the third quarter, the Red Riders stormed back into the game, outscoring the Irish 22-3 to take the lead into the fourth quarter.

Asked if he’d remembered a quarter quite like the third, Durkin laughed and said, “No, I honestly don’t. The roof was caving in, I think we blew three timeouts.”

Orrville coach Mark Alberts, who has 501 career victories, said it was a first for him.

“That was as good of a comeback by any team that I’ve ever coached,” Alberts said.

“You’ve got to give some credit to them down the stretch because they made some [key] free throws,” said Alberts of the Irish. “When you do that, that’s how you get to Columbus.”

Irizarry scored 20 points while Ja’Niece Whitehead had 11.

Asked about playing Elyria Catholic in Saturday’s regional final, Irizarry said, “We’re very excited.

“We know we struggled in the third quarter, but we came back and won,” Irizarry said. “So I’m very excited for our team. We kind of slacked on defense in the third quarter.”

Orrville sophomore guard Hannah Plybon scored eight of her 17 points in the third quarter as the Irish turned the ball over 11 times and made just one of 11 field-goal attempts.

“We were panicked, there was no question about it,” Durkin said. “We had built a great lead and we had talked [at halftime] about playing a great third quarter as well.

“I think part of it is the last two tournament games the same thing happened, and I think the kids remembered that,” Durkin said. “They had a bad taste in their mouths. And it just snowballed.

“But what a rebound.”

With the Irish ahead 46-44, Powell sank two free throws with 22 seconds to go.

After Plybon scored, the Orrville bench was assessed a technical foul where Irizarry sealed the victory by making both shots.

Asked how his staff was able to get the Irish back on their game, Durkin said, “I think it was a lot of things, but we tried to relax them.

“We told them after the third quarter, ‘Fine, it’s a 0-0- game, we’ve got to win one quarter of basketball here.’

“Hopefully, [they would] forget about that misery of that third quarter and move on,” Durkin said. “I’ve got to give my kids a lot of credit because it’s not easy for high school kids to overcome something like that.”

Alberts was surprised that the Irish excelled at the start.

“The game plan was to try and keep them from getting to the basket,” Alberts said. “We were getting all kinds of fouls called on us playing passive.

“So we thought, ‘What the heck? If they’re gonna call fouls on us for playing passive, we might as well play aggressive, full-court and get the heck after them.

“Then they started to call the fouls on them and we’re the ones who were pressing,” said Alberts of the third-quarter turnaround. “[Maybe] we should have started that way.

“It’s a credit to our girls that they did not quit or come out of the locker room thinking that they could not win, they really felt that they could. And they almost did.

“In the fourth quarter, we had it tied up and we had opportunities to take the lead.”