Soaring Simpson leads Harding past Boardman

December 2, 2015 at 12:10a.m.

WARREN

Tuesday night’s Boardman-Warren Harding basketball game didn’t have the last-minute drama that the Boardman-Harding football game had on Oct. 9 because Harding left no doubt with a spirited second half that concluded with the Raiders’ 79-52 win on their home court.

Gabe Simpson had 22 points and nine of Harding’s 14 assists in the All-American Conference big-school contest that served as the Raiders’ season opener. Boardman (1-1) already had a season-opening 65-48 win over Liberty last week.

“In a 32-minute game, that’s a heck of a stat line,” Harding coach Andy Vlajkovich said of Simpson, his senior point guard who had sufficient support from Shakem Johnson’s 19 points and Derek Culver’s 17 rebounds in a game in which Boardman never led.

It was a different story on the football field in October, when the Spartans picked up a blocked field goal and scored in the final seconds for a 18-14 win.

Tuesday’s basketball encounter was dominated by Harding, which also beat Boardman, 68-48, in the 2014-15 season opener for both teams a year ago.

“We shot the worst we’ve shot in a couple of years and still scored 79, so I’m not too worried about the offensive end,” Vlajkovich said. “At times, our defense was not very good. Gannon is a heck of a player and we had a hard time staying in front of him,” Vlajkovic said of Boardman guard Gannon Murray, who led the Spartans with 20 points.

“But we guarded when we had to and that’s kind of been our M.O.,” Vlajkovich said. “I’m not real pleased about that — that we kind of guard when we feel our backs are against the wall. If we ever start guarding hard for 32 minutes, I’ll be a lot happier.”

Although Boardman came within two points at 20-18 and 31-29 in the first half, Harding’s pressure eventually wore down the visitors and delivered the final blow in the fourth quarter when the Raiders outscored Boardman, 25-8.

“It was not just a fourth-quarter story, it was a wear-them-down story,” Vlajkovich said. “That’s what pressure is going to do — not always cause turnovers to help you score early in the game, but to wear the other team down as time goes on. I’m not displeased, but I’m not terribly excited. I didn’t think our energy in the first half was great. Maybe it was nerves.”

Despite having just two points in the first half, the 6-foot-10 Culver had a little more fire to start the third quarter, when he made three baskets and three free throws for the majority of his 13 points. Culver had 10 of his game-high rebounds on the offensive boards.

Boardman coach Pat Birch said that slow starts to both halves hurt.

“We didn’t play well the first couple minutes of the first half and the first couple minutes of the second half, but, in between, we saw what we’re capable of being,” Birch said. “I think we shared the ball and I think we played very good team basketball in between.”

After Boardman pulled within 31-29 before the half, a spate of turnovers led to Harding points and a 37-29 halftime spread.

“That kind of took a lot of momentum away from us going into halftime,” said Birch, whose staff emphasized the urgency to show some grit in the third quarter.

But Harding started the third quarter with a 6-0 run and eventually opened up a 50-35 lead.

“Culver is very aggressive and he’s a legitimate talent and we knew that coming in,” Birch said of the top-ranked junior in Ohio. “We just had to battle with him and make life difficult and we did that, but he’s a good player and he’ll work and get his [recognition] eventually. The thing you hope is that, if he’s shooting well, then they’re not going to shoot from the outside. In the second half, they started hitting some threes and that resulted in a kind of pick-your-poison scenario.”

Harding hit five three-point goals in the second half.