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Mentor pulls away from Fitch in second half
By ERIC FORTUNE
POLAND
After a stagnant first half in which Austintown Fitch took Mentor out of its bread-and-butter, Andrew Robinson got hot in the third quarter and sparked the Cardinals to an 86-66 victory.
The teams met Saturday in the United Way Holiday Classic at Poland High School.
Robinson led the Cardinals with 19 points and his four 3-pointers in the third quarter helped Mentor turn a one-point halftime lead into a 15-point advantage.
That was the end of what worked so well for the Falcons in the first half.
“The first half was our tempo,” Fitch coach Brian Beany said. “We were making them work for their shots. We were getting the possessions that we wanted. And like a good team does, it just takes one little 3 being made and then a string of them start falling.
“Before you know it, they are on a 12-0 run. Their ability to shoot the basketball, it’s just an absolutely huge weapon. We have streaky shooters and they have consistent shooters. If you are hot, it’s great.”
Until that happened, the Falcons (1-2) had all the answers in taking the Cardinals (2-1) out of their game plan.
“We wanted to press,” Mentor coach Bob Krizancic said. “We wanted to run. We wanted to get into the 80s or 90s. We’d feel really good. We just didn’t do that in the first half.”
The Falcons slowed the pace down to a crawl and were able to get Mentor into some early foul trouble which got them to the foul line 20 times.
They made 17 of those free throws while Mentor struggled to get into any consistency shooting 12 of 37 from the field.
“We knew they were a really solid basketball team,” Krizancic said. “We were paranoid and very leery of their shooters and trying to match up in transition. We just felt we were going to have to grind it out. If we could make that run and get into the transition game, that’s what we wanted — tempo. Every game, tempo has to be in our favor.”
The only miscue the Falcons had in the first half was allowing the Cardinals to go on an 8-0 run to close out the first quarter after taking a 13-12 advantage with 46 seconds left.
It was a precursor to what would be the norm throughout the second half when the Cardinals found their tempo and outscored the Falcons 52-33.
“In that third quarter, we really got into our transition game,” Krizancic said. “We scored 28 points and that is what we have to do to be successful.
“When we had the run where we were going to regionals 10 out of 13 years, we were putting up 85 to 90 points. We’ve kind of gotten away from that in the last couple of years, but we are trying to get back into doing that.”
The Falcons were led by Scott Duffy’s game-high 21 points and the Falcons now see where they need to get to after playing the Cardinals tough for a half.
“I didn’t have to schedule this game against Mentor, but these are the games you want to play because you get something out of it,” Beany said.
Derek Gunter added 11 points and Anthony Pangio had 10 points and nine rebonnds for Fitch. Tadas Tatarunas (12 points), Allen Sims (12 points) and Max Barich (11) reached double figures for Mentor. Tatarunas added 10 rebounds.