Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Photo
Ursuline’s Kevin Jackson (30) has a shot blocked by Sharon’s Marlin Sanders (1) in the third period of their basketball game during the See Them Rise Classic on Monday at the Covelli Centre in Youngstown. The Irish edged the Tigers, 57-55.
Strollo, Ursuline pull past Sharon
By Greg gulas
Youngstown
When the game is on the line, Ursuline High’s Ryan Strollo seems to be at his best.
Strollo scored a game-high 23 points, including 11 in the final period, as the Fighting Irish rallied to defeat Sharon, 57-55 as Ohio earned a split in the four-game series with Pennsylvania in the See Them Rise Classic Monday at the Covelli Centre.
Strollo earned the second John Kovach Sportsmanship Award, named after the late Vindicator sportswriter whose spearheaded this event.
“I just take what the defense gives me and the last two games I’ve felt really good with the ball,” Strollo said. “It’s like I should have felt like this all season.
“I look forward to having the ball with the game on the line, but you need to also give credit to my teammates because they found me when I was open, and everyone just stepped up when they needed to in the final period.”
Desmond McElroy, the only other Ursuline player in double figures, finished with 13 points, including three triples.
“We went up and then they would take the lead,” McElroy said. “That‘s how it was the entire game. We just needed to keep playing hard and at times that was tough because Sharon is an excellent defensive team.
“While we need to get a little better defensively, tonight we really wanted to win and it showed because we played hard all night at both ends of the court.”
Sharon (5-3), which held Ursuline without a point for 3:46 and 3:06 in the second period, then got four points each from Andrey Jefferson and Khalil Hopson after the intermission, outscoring the Irish 13-8 to take a 41-39 lead entering the fourth.
It was all Strollo after that, as all five of his buckets in the final stanza either knotted the game or gave the Irish the lead as they broke their two-game tailspin.
“We’ve been struggling offensively and tonight Sharon did a nice job of packing it in on us. After losing two in a row, we needed a big win and tonight we got it,” said Ursuline coach Keith Gunther. “Sometimes Ryan [Strollo] puts too much pressure on himself, but when you need it most that is when you want your players to show up and Ryan definitely did that tonight in the fourth quarter.”
Darell Stovall had seven rebounds for Sharon. Monday’s game was the first of four contests it will play this week. The other three are league games.
“I thought our kids played realty hard tonight, but down the stretch we took some shots that we’d really like to have back,” said Sharon coach Justin Magestro. “We pretty much rotate six players, three that didn’t have any varsity experience coming into the season. The one big advantage we have though is that this team really plays together as a group.
“There’s no [me] mindset and we’ve become a well-disciplined group. Sometimes, however, we do distribute the ball a little too much and that happened several times tonight.”