Sunday, December 14, 2014
Ursuline falls in battle of Irish
Akron St. Vincent-St. Mary forced key turnovers down the stretch and escaped with a 66-59 victory.
By Curtis Pulliam
Youngstown
Midway through the third quarter, when Ursuline forward Dave Collins came down from a memorable dunk, he realized he gave his team momentum.
“It was just a spark for the team,” Collins said. “When we got that, it got all the morale back up.”
But the emotional high for the Irish didn’t last long.
Akron St. Vincent-St. Mary forced key turnovers down the stretch and escaped with a 66-59 victory.
“We didn’t come up with some key rebounds, some key loose balls,” said Ursuline head coach Keith Gunther. “When we went up I thought, ‘Man, do we have a good shot here.’ ”
Ursuline was up for a brief moment but Johnnie Robinson hit a 3-pointer to give the Fighting Irish the lead for good.
“They made some plays down the stretch,” Gunther said. “We made some plays, but they made a few more.”
Greg Parella led the Irish with 19 points and Collins finished with 14, including the play of the night.
“If you would have told me he was going to dunk that ball I would have never said yes in a million years,” Gunther said. “Because in reality he never does that in practice. It raised the level of excitment of the game.”
Playing in front of a large crowd and playing a traditional basketball powerhouse, Gunther thought his kids kept their composure for the most part.
“I have to tell my kids all the time when we play St. V’s that there is one thing you have to remember: 23 (Lebron James) is not coming out that locker room,” Gunther said.
Wright State commit Mark Hughes had 12 points, but was the main focus defensively going into the game for St. Vincent-St. Mary’s head coach Dru Joyce.
“In the first half I thought Mark pushed off on some of them but that happens,” Joyce said. “But our game was to focus on him and we wanted someone else to have to step up.”
Parella stepped up with eight points in the third quarter to keep Ursuline within striking distance.
“I thought he had a great game,” Joyce said. “We kind of underestimated him. We thought he was kind of just a catch-and-shoot guy but he made some drives that kept them in the game.”
Although the Irish lost on the scoreboard, Collins believes his team can take away good things from the contest.
“I think it strengthens us and gets us ready for the playoffs,” Collins said. “We are going to have to play big teams like that.”