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McDonald holds on against Wellsville
Photo
McDonald’s Christian Rusinowski (10) muscles up a shot over Wellsville’s Seth Bradford, right, Jordan Sloan, left, and Josh Carter during their game Tuesday at McDonald.
MCDONALD
Stephen Politano was in this position before.
In fact, so were his McDonald High teammates. Come to think of it, the Blue Devils’ opponent — Wellsville — was right there too.
On Jan. 10, the teams faced each other at Wellsville. McDonald had a slight lead in the closing seconds, but a Tigers player hit a buzzer-beater to win 56-55.
“This one felt a lot better,” Politano said.
That’s because McDonald got revenge on last month’s loss by holding on for a 66-64 win.
Wellsville had a chance to tie or take the lead with 2.4 seconds left, but a botched in-bounds play allowed for just a last-second, full-court heave from Cameron Douglas that fell five feet short.
“We lost our composure against the pressure,” Tigers coach David Thompson said. “They were up in our pants.”
First-year McDonald coach Brian Higgins said he spent the better part of the season focusing on defensive fundamentals. However on Tuesday, he wanted to kick it up a notch.
“We wanted to be more defensively sound before we got too intense with it,” Higgins said. “We were trying to keep an up-tempo game by being aggressive with the press and running up and down the floor.”
The Tigers actually led by one after the first quarter, but the Blue Devils took a 10-point lead to the locker room. Politano scored nine points in the second quarter and finished with 31. He also had two assists, two steals and two rebounds in that impressive quarter.
“It definitely helped us,” he said. “The second quarter is usually where we fall off, but we got up and were able to ride momentum into halftime.”
Unhappy with not only the result, but his own play in the last showdown with the Inter-Tri County League Tier Two foes, Politano used this performance as a second chance.
“He heard a lot from me leading up to it,” Higgins said. “I told him to use this as a redemption game and he definitely rose to the challenge.”
The Tigers closed to within four in the third quarter, but with 2:15 left in the fourth, McDonald looked to put it away.
He’s a running back on the football team, yet Austin Bucan played receiver on the basketball court when we caught a long in-bounds pass from Matt Seitz over his left shoulder. The lone senior on the team then drove for a layup and was fouled. At that time the score was 61-54.
“I just wanted to get the ball,” Bucan said. “It was a cool moment and it got loud in here.”
But the raucous home crowd soon quieted when Wellsville closed it to one in the final 30 seconds.
Douglas hit a 3-pointer from the top of the key to make it 65-64 with 2.9 left. Fouled quickly, Politano made one free throw for the eventual final score. He was 10-for-14 on foul shots, while the Tigers were 6-for-16.
“One hoop, one box out, one pass, one free throw,” Higgins said. “This game came down to the wire and every little play mattered.”
Bucan finished with five of the Blue Devils’ 13 steals as Matt Seitz had 15 points. McDonald (9-6, 8-4 ITCL Tier Two) has won six of its last seven.
Jordan Sloan led Wellsville (9-7, 6-5) with 19 points and Seth Bradford had 12 rebounds.