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Girard stuffs Liberty in rubber match
O’Hara leads
Indians with 21
GIRARD
Liberty won the opening tip when Asim Pleas out-jumped Tyler Kilbourne, but it was all downhill from there for the Leopards, who flopped in a Division III sectional championship game won by home-court Girard, 62-33, Friday night.
In the rubber match between the rivals, Dylan O’Hara had a game-high 21 points with six rebounds.
“Coach said that they came right after us in the draw, so we had to make a statement,” said the junior, whose early 3-pointers loosened Liberty’s defense — and more.
“I think it got us rolling and my teammates do a good job finding me and that sapped their energy from the start.”
Girard (19-3) plays LaBrae on Monday in a district semifinal at Howland High.
“That’s who we wanted the whole time because we think we deserve a second chance,” O’Hara said of a rematch of a game that Girard lost, 49-47, on Feb 7. “I think we’ll be ready for them.”
Girard coach Craig Hannon left no doubt that he had an axe to grind against Liberty and that LaBrae is the Indians’ next target.
“Liberty wanted us at the draw and I think they got every bit of us and we took that as a challenge,” Hannon said. “We had to play a very good game and I thought we did. We executed what we wanted to do, made them take the shots we wanted them to take and, in the end, we got the win and we’re moving on.”
Liberty coach Dan Bubon was stoic, but dumbfounded that his Leopards were 4 of 17 from the field in the first half and 16 of 52 for the game and trailed at halftime, 28-8. To boot, Liberty was 0 of 1 from the foul line.
“I’m trying to wrap my head around what we shot,” he said. “We shot one foul shot the whole game, we made one 3-pointer which was banked in from the corner and is virtually impossible. It just wasn’t happening.”
It seemed that Girard had the killer instinct, led by Evan “The Animal” Standohar, who likes doing the dirty work.
He thinks it may have rattled the Leopards, whose second-leading scorer — Pleas with 10 — came into the game with the area’s top average of 22.9 ppg.
“You’ve got to intimidate some way and I try to do that by playing with energy and going after every loose ball and rebound,” Standohar said. “I think our team feeds off of that and that makes me go even harder.”
Lynn Bowden’s 12 points paced Liberty (13-11).
Evan Standohar, a six-footer with exceptional bounce, had 11 points and 10 of Girard’s 38 rebounds.
“That’s what my role is and I love it. I let Jimmy [Standohar} and Dylan [O’Hara] do their thing and I just go out there and scrap,” Evan Standohar said. “Rebounding has always been a passion.”
Jim Standohar said that the Girard-Liberty rivalry has built-in features.
“You don’t have to do anything [emotionally] to set the tone because it’s that big of a game,” he said. “I love playing them, but we’re playing good basketball right now and trying to keep it rolling.”
He said that practices were devoted to defense.
“That’s all we practiced all week,” Jim Standohar said. “We had guys ask why we’re not practicing offense, but all we did was defense and it paid off.”
While scoring two of his 10 points, Jim Standohar twisted as he went to the basket sideways, then bent backward and barely had enough of a push to make the shot.
Hannon, who acknowledged that tournament blowouts are few and far between, was pleased with Kilbourne, who had 13 points and eight rebounds.
“He’s a skilled kid with a ton of ability and he’s turned into a role player for us, but we’ve got a bunch of guys who can do that on any given night.”