Devil in details as Lisbon tops Columbiana

February 7, 2015 at 12:05a.m.

COLUMBIANA

Lisbon used a 13-5 third-quarter run and a dominant second-half defensive effort to pull away from Inter Tri-County League rival Columbiana on Friday night.

Austin Rutecki scored a team-high 18 points in a balanced effort from Lisbon, which saw four players — and nearly five — score in double figures in a 63-45 victory.

The Blue Devils watched a 14-point first-half lead — which became eight points at halftime — disintegrate early in the third quarter as the host Clippers looked to rally out of the intermission.

Cooper Smith drilled a 3-pointer on Columbiana’s first second-half possession and, after a defensive stop, Devin Rice scored two of his game-high 21 points to bring the Clippers to within three with 6:10 left in the quarter.

But there was little panic in the visiting Blue Devils (13-5).

“They hit a couple 3’s there at the end of the second quarter,” said Lisbon coach Chris Huckshold. “We talked about it at halftime. We just didn’t rotate quickly and get on their shooters, things like that.

“Any team that’s down is going to come back and play hard and they had a couple good possessions and we had a couple defensive breakdowns.”

On Lisbon’s next trip up the floor, sound team passing enabled Josh Liberati to step back and make a 3-pointer from the top of the arc to trigger the decisive run.

“Lib[erati] hit the big ‘3’ and everyone else was like, ‘All right here we go again,’” said Huckshold.

Rice responded with a basket of his own, but the rest of the quarter belonged to Lisbon. Josh Craig followed Rice’s basket with a jumper before Avery Andric, trailing on a Liberati-led fast break, sized up an open 3-pointer and buried it for a 38-29 lead with 4:09 left in the third. On their next trip, Rutecki, a junior forward, knocked down a pull-up jumper for a 40-29 lead with 3:42 left.

“I think we got a little lackadaisical and they were getting second-chance points,” Rutecki said of the Clippers’ run and his team’s eventual response. “We just got together and told ourselves, ‘We need to box out and play like we know how to. Just push the ball, get rebounds and keep them to one shot.’ We crashed the boards really well tonight.”

With 20 seconds left in the third, Liberati rebounded a missed free throw, turned and released a strike the length of the floor into the waiting arms of Andric.

Andric had snuck behind the Clippers’ foul-shot alignment after a substitution for the easy basket, putting Lisbon up 46-34. Columbiana (11-8) had not made a field goal since Drew Markosky’s basket off a Cooper Smith steal with 2:30 left in the third quarter.

Craig made another basket 45 seconds into the fourth quarter and Lisbon ended any suspense when Liberati and Trevor Reese made consecutive baskets while being fouled.

With 3:50 left in the fourth, Diego Villatoro’s basket ended Columbiana’s drought, but the damage was already done.

“I think they out-physicaled us,” said Columbiana coach Ron Moschella. “That’s what I think.

“We made bad decisions. Each possession really meant a lot. We turned the ball over and they made us turn the ball over. There wasn’t enough ball movement and we got relegated to dribbling all over the place.”