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Columbiana’s Ferraro makes game-winning shot vs. YCS
By Dan Hiner
COLUMBIANA
With three seconds left on the clock, Columbiana senior forward Dylan Ferraro caught the ball on the right side of the low block.
Ferraro cut underneath the basket and banked a contested layup off the glass just before the final buzzer to give the Clippers a 43-41 victory over Youngstown Christian.
“Offense isn’t my thing. I shot it and it went in,” Ferraro said.
Columbiana improved to 13-9 with the win. Youngstown Christian fell to 7-14.
The Clippers took a 20-8 lead after the first quarter. The Eagles had a difficult time handling Columbiana’s full-court pressure early and turned the ball over in the first quarter.
In the second quarter the Eagles started to turn things around and cut the Clippers’ lead to 29-18 just before halftime.
Youngstown Christian went on an 8-0 in the third quarter to shrink the Columbiana lead down to 32-30. The Clippers held onto a 34-30 lead heading into the fourth quarter. Even after committing two turnovers early in the fourth quarter, the Eagles fought back to tie the game at 41 with 2:10 left in the game. Both defenses held their opponents scoreless until Ferraro made his buzzer-beating shot.
“We just didn’t play very well, very smart, in the first half. We kind of just did what we were supposed to do in the second half,” Youngstown Christian head basketball coach Dolph Carroll said.
The Clippers played a full-court press most of the game. But during the fourth quarter Columbiana changed to a man-to-man defense and held the Eagles to seven points in the final quarter.
“We went man,” Columbiana head coach Ron Moschella said. “We didn’t play man for a long time. We went man because 24 [Ryan Houston] was hitting the 3-point shots. So we went man and we blocked down on their men. We did a good job there, but what we weren’t doing was boxing out and rebounding.”
Houston led the Eagles in scoring with 14 points, including six in the fourth quarter.
Forward Devin Rice carried the offense through most of the game. Rice finished with 19 points, but was held scoreless in the fourth quarter. Knowing the Eagles were shutting down Rice, Moschella drew up the play to get the ball inside to Ferraro.
“We started off really well — we were running a lot of the stuff that we wanted to run,” Moschella said. “Second half, they kicked it up a little bit on defense. They took our best shooter away, Devin Rice, and we had a tough time scoring. I told them to attack the basket and they forgot to do that in the second half.
“We set up something in the end. They got off what we wanted, we wanted it inside.”
Ferraro finished with six points and two rebounds. Moschella said he wanted him to be more aggressive during the game.
“Ferraro made the shot,” Moschella said. “He’s totally unselfish — he thinks he is a point guard. I would like him to score a lot more, but that was a big shot he made.”