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Howland sweeps Cards
Arbie Murray hit two free throws in the final second to help lift the Tigers past Canfield
HOWLAND
Howland High’s regular-season sweep of Canfield in boys basketball had a similar tone.
In their first meeting on Dec. 30, Brendan Cope took an inbounds pass and made a layup in the last four seconds to give Howland a 71-70 victory.
On Friday, Arbie Murray’s two free throws in the final second completed the task in Howland’s 60-59 win.
“There was so much pressure, especially because the whole town was relying on me,” the 6-3 junior said of attempting to make at least one point to tie and two to put the Tigers ahead. “But I was focused.”
Murray had 18 points, John-Mark Weisman 12 and Tanner Scott 11 for the Tigers (8-5, 6-1 AAC), who led by as many as 17 points (33-16) in the first half.
“In the first game, I was in foul trouble so I didn’t really play that much,” Murray said of his absence as a non-factor in the outcome late last month.
Howland coach Bill Bogan asked about his degree of confidence in Murray the final second.
“Very much so, but the thing that was most pleasing to me was how we moved the ball in the last five seconds,” he said. “I think four out of five guys touched the ball, so that’s showing great trust in our teammates.
“We’re not a team that’s led by an individual. We’re a good team right now because we’ve got multiple pieces to our puzzle.”
Canfield battled back to take leads at 50-49 on Kyle Brown’s 3-point goal at the outset of the fourth quarter and again at 57-56 and 59-58 on two Brown layups.
Brown finished with 18, only behind Matt Yourstowski’s game-high 19 points. The Cards (7-8, 3-4) also got 14 points from Will Jobi.
Of the two one-point victories over Canfield, Bogan said: “It’s Canfield and it’s Howland. They’ve been very well-coached for the past 35 years. Those kids expect to win basketball games. Our young team needs to learn that, when we get up on teams, we need to learn how to execute a little more crisply to get exactly what we want.”
Bogan thought his Tigers did a good job all around, except for a shortage of shots in the second half.
“I thought, defensively, we had different guys step up, but they also had kids step out and make good basketball plays,” he said.
Canfield coach Todd Muckleroy said his players have been hanging with teams, then finding themselves in a position where they shoot well and climb back into games.
“We’ve been kind of living and dying by our shooting from the field, so it helped us get back tonight,” he said. “Our guys will fight to the end. We tried it tonight, but credit Howland, which made shots when it needed to. We were right there to try to make the defensive play, but it just didn’t work out for us.”
Of the last nine seconds with Howland mapping its final inbounds play, Muckleroy said: “We were prepared for them to get the ball to Cope because that’s how they beat us the last time.”
Of the game’s last five minutes, the Canfield coach said: “I thought we were in pretty good position, but Murray was having a pretty good game and they got the ball to him and he tied it [52-52 at 5:01] and then made his free throws [with a second remaining].”
Canfield’s best quarter was the third when the Cards scored 20 points before adding a 12-point fourth.