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Wildcats suffer an off night
West Branch rolled while Hubbard fell to Crestwood
By Steve Wilaj
BOARDMAN
If a team ever fell victim to the nature of tournament basketball, it was the Struthers High boys squad on Monday.
The Wildcats, entering the Division II district tournament at Boardman High, were playing good basketball.
But they were struck by the cold truth — it only takes one bad game.
In an off-night, the Wildcats were defeated by West Branch, 62-50, in the tournament’s opening round.
“Things finally started to come together and we played some good basketball for the last eight games of the season,” Struthers coach Joe Savko said.
“It’s a shame that tonight — not that we didn’t come with our best effort — but our best basketball wasn’t tonight.”
That was in part due to an impressive outing by the Warriors.
While Struthers (8-15) shot 36 percent from the field, West Branch was better, connecting on 42 percent of its shots. But the biggest difference came on the glass and at the foul line.
The Warriors (7-16) outrebounded the Wildcats by seven. They also knocked down 22 of 28 free throw attempts compared to a 6 of 13 performance from Struthers.
“Controlling the game — that was the key,” West Branch coach Lou Sellarolli said. “We wanted to make sure we had good possessions and I thought we did that.
“Once we had the lead we did a good job of controlling the clock.”
West Branch had three players score in double figures: Beau Taylor with 16, Kip Deshields with 15 and Jacob Griffith with 12.
Struthers — which struggled with the Warriors’ size — was led by David Stewart’s 21 points.
“We got a couple of our shots blocked early and I think it kind of played with us mentally,” Savko said. “Then we weren’t ourselves as far as going to the hoop and getting to the rim.”
In Monday’s second game, Hubbard found itself struggling with the opponent’s height-advantage as well. Unable to match the size and strength of Crestwood, the Eagles fell, 54-36.
After a 19-14 first half in which Crestwood led, Hubbard (4-19) cut the deficit to one midway through the third period.
But that’s as close as they would get.
On a night when the Eagles shot 35 percent, Crestwood (8-15) cruised to victory behind a 35-22 second half advantage.
“You can’t do that,” Hubbard coach Rick Fox said. “We missed seven lay-ups, I believe, and a lot of wide open shots. We just got to finish those. We’re down five at half and if we make five of those lay-ups, we’re up. We just couldn’t knock down shots tonight.”