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For Matisis, father knows best
South Range’s Tony Matisi wins matchup against sons John, Zach
By Ryan Buck
MINERAL RIDGE
South Range girls basketball coach Tony Matisi taught sons John and Zach much of what they know about the game they both played and now coach.
The lessons continue today.
The Raiders raced out to an early lead Thursday night and downed Mineral Ridge, led by John (head coach) and Zach (his top assistant), 83-45, in a battle of unbeatens inside the Mineral Ridge gymnasium.
Raiders forwards Maddie Durkin and Morgan Czopur each scored 20 points as South Range sent an emphatic message to the rest of the Inter Tri-County League.
“We want to force tempo,” said the eldest Matisi, now in his second season at South Range after a revered 25-year tenure at Lowellville. “We want to get everybody out of their comfort zone. I thought we did that well.
“We’ve got a great bench; eight [players] deep and great rotations. Everybody comes in. We had a little foul trouble tonight. We had to sit two starters, but two kids come in and played well.
“It was very important. We wanted to close this out. It was our last league game until the new year. We value the importance of the league.”
Czopur drilled a 3-pointer from the right wing to extend South Range’s lead to 18-5 with 1:30 to go in the first quarter. With 45 seconds left in the quarter, Durkin followed her own miss with an easy basket for a 21-5 advantage.
As the first quarter came to a close, Czopur stole an errant pass in the Rams’ backcourt and finished with a layup and foul, for which she converted the following free throw.
South Range’s press — a devastating rotation of full-court or three-quarters suffocation — created more scoring chances into the second quarter.
A block from center Sarah Durr sprung Patricia Ritter for an easy basket for a 28-8 lead. Alyssa Harkins’ 3-pointer momentarily stopped the Raiders’ onslaught, but Kelsey Phillips’ jumper on their next possession gave South Range a 33-12 lead that only widened into the second half.
John Matisi echoed his father’s sentiments about the Raiders’ press and elevated pace.
“They’ve been blowing the doors off everybody and we knew that coming in, but we weren’t ready to go from the jump,” said Matisi, now in his third season at Mineral Ridge. “We knew they were going to press us, we knew they were big and we just weren’t ready to play.
“They were a big part of that. When we ran our halfcourt offense, I felt like we were fine. We were picking up fouls [on them] and some things we wanted to do, but we had too many turnovers and gave up too many offensive rebounds and not getting out to their shooters early.
“It was too fast for us.”
John and Zach (the freshman coach) began their coaching careers alongside their father while he was still at Lowellville.
“[South Range were] the league champs last year,” John said. “At the end of the day, we’re trying to take what they have. We know they’re in our district and our league. They’re the team we have to beat. It has nothing to with us. It’s a cool story, but it’s about the team more than anything.”
Tony likes what he sees from his sons thus far even as his teams have won all three father-sons meetings in the last two seasons.
“It’s hard,” Tony said. “You try and put it aside. I know [John’s] worked his tail off. In three years, they were undefeated and tied with us for the league. I was proud of that, but I hate to be the one to. I’m very proud.”