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West Branch come up short against SVSM
BARBERTON
Basketball can be a cruel game.
Not only did the West Branch High School girls team go cold from the floor during the most pivotal part of Saturday’s Division II regional championship, but they also had to watch precious seconds tick off the clock as St. Vincent St. Mary was in no hurry to do much of anything except clinch a state final four berth with a 42-36 victory at Barberton High School.
The Warriors (24-4) held a slim lead for most of the afternoon, but a two-minute stretch to end the third quarter and begin the fourth gave the Irish (25-2) the lead, and more importantly, the momentum.
“They’re a good team once they get the lead,” West Branch coach Walt DeShields said. “That’s the thing that concerned us the most, that they could hold the ball against us and run some clock once they got the lead.”
Things began to unravel for the Warriors with 1:51 remaining in the third quarter. They were leading 29-22 and had given up just two field goals in the second half.
St. Vincent-St. Mary’s Kiley May was at the foul line and after making the first shot, she missed the second. But West Branch failed to block her out and she grabbed the rebound and was fouled again on the put back.
The Warriors failed to learn from their mistake the first time around and once again May got her own rebound and was fouled going for the loose ball. She converted a layup and knocked down a jumper in the final minute. Suddenly, the West Branch lead had dwindled down to only one, 29-28.
“It just gave them a lot of momentum going into the fourth,” DeShields said. “We still had that one-point lead and you know, you gotta play 32 minutes of basketball — you can’t play 24 or 26, whatever.”
To open the fourth quarter, there were two ties and three lead changes, but a 3-point field goal by Shannon Jack gave the Irish a four-point lead.
The Irish missed five free throws in the quarter, leaving the door open for the Warriors. However not one of their 3-point attempts fell down the stretch and seven fourth-quarter points wasn’t enough to keep pace.
“They hit some big shots and got some momentum,” said Melinda Trimmer, West Branch first-team all-district guard. “They stepped up their defense a lot and it was getting hard for us to score.”
Trimmer was held scoreless in the second half and finished with seven points. She had four assists in the game, but West Branch was certainly missing her scoring ability as St. Vincent-St. Mary’s started to clamp down defensively.
The Irish were successful at forcing the ball out of Trimmer’s hands by cutting her off at the three-point line with two or more defenders.
“I really thought our girls did an absolute fabulous job guarding Trimmer,” St. Vincent-St. Mary coach Joe Jakubick said. “We said there were two things we couldn’t do: we couldn’t let her get to the paint and we couldn’t put her at the foul line [she was just 2-for-2].
“I felt if we did those things it would put us in a position to have a good opportunity to win.”
The Warriors had a strong contingent of fans and a lively student section for the regional game that was played less than 10 miles from St. Vincent-St. Mary High School. Pavin Heath hit two 3-pointers in the second quarter and finished with a team-high 11 points.
May led all scorers with 17 points and Jordan Korinek had 13 rebounds for the Irish, which will face Millersburg West Holmes (27-0) in a state semifinal on Thursday at Ohio State’s Jerome Schottenstein Center.