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Southern hangs on to oust Lowellville
By lowell spencer
STRUTHERS
The Southern High boys basketball held a 23-point advantage in the third quarter of Friday’s Division IV Tournament in Struthers before escaping with a 56-44 victory over Inter Tri-County League Tier Two rival Lowellville.
In the other game, Mogadore defeated Leetonia, 58-52.
Southern seemed to be in total control from the start as they held a 14-point lead at intermission.
Indians senior guard Luke Griffith scored 13 of his game-high 21-points in the first half.
“He missed six games there in the middle of the year,” Indians coach George Whittaker said. “We were 2-4 when he was gone. If we had [won those games], I mean we probably would have been right in the hunt for the league [title].
“Seems like he’s coming back now,” Whittaker said. “Luke is a good basketball player, he’s smart, and if you let him get some open looks he is going to score on you.”
Griffith said,
The Indians stretched the lead to 44-22 at the end of the third quarter.
“I just came into the game thinking just let the game come to me,” Griffith said. “I didn’t want to try to force anything, take any bad shots, I just wanted to let everything come to me and take good shots and knock some down.”
The Rockets came alive to start the fourth period as they went on a 14-0 run. From there, the Indians converted 13 of 16 free throws to keep the Rockets from completing a comeback.
“Defensively, now this is the third time we have played them, and we did a good job defensively on them,” Whittaker said. “The pressure bothered us a little, they made a few big shots late to pull within 10, but we stepped up to the foul line and kept making our foul shots. That’s what you have to do if you’re a good team.”
Dean Donatelli led the Rockets with 20 points.
“This is real big,” Griffith said. “We’ve been up and down all year. This is a real big confidence builder for us.”
MOGADORE 58, LEETONIA 52
Despite an unimpressive 5-15 record, Leetonia battled toe-to-toe with 17-5 Mogadore. It was the first time since the beginning of the season that the Bears had all five starters healthy and playing.
“This is really the first game we had everyone back,” Leetonia coach Mark Taylor said. “It gave a little glimpse of what we could have been this year.
“Some of these guys persevered; we had a string of tough losses because we were kind of depleted at times.”
The game was a nail bitter throughout as the teams were tied 17-17 at the end of the first period, and then again at 27-27 at intermission.
The Wildcats came out in a 1-3-1 zone to start the second half and slowly took command of the game.
“We knew Leetonia had a good team. We knew they were bigger than us,” Wildcats coach Russ Swartz said. “It was a tough game; we knew it was going to be.
“When we went to our 1-3-1 I thought that was the difference, because we did a good job of stopping dribble penetration,” Swartz said. “We did a pretty good job, most of the time, rebounding out of the zone which was key.”
Cody Stokes led the Bears with 19 pointst, 13 rebounds and two blocked shots in spite of being at the hospital earlier in the day.
“He had a hematoma on his right thigh, he had to go to the hospital to get it drained,” Taylor said.