Fitch’s ‘little’ guys come up big in rout

January 3, 2015 at 12:08a.m.

AUSTINTOWN

Austintown Fitch guards Jake Bullen and Scotty Duffy will never meet the standards set forth by the proverbial “first off the bus” assignment.

Those duties are more suited for the intimidating presences of 6-foot-7 forward Anthony Pangio, frontcourt mate and rebounding demon Dominic DiFrancesco or the sculpted Bryce Hall.

When the vertically challenged Bullen-Duffy tandem takes the court, however, there is little question they make the Falcons go.

The pair combined for 30 points Friday as Fitch ran away from Canfield in a convincing 68-28 win in All-American Conference Red Tier play.

Fitch raced out to a 17-3 first quarter lead and never looked back. When foul trouble to Pangio and DiFrancesco threatened Fitch’s obvious size and strength advantage, the Falcons’ diminutive — yet dynamic — backcourt took over.

Duffy drilled a 3-pointer to put Fitch ahead 9-3 before Pangio, still in the game with coach Brian Beany’s blessing, made one of his two first-quarter baskets.

“We wanted to go inside-out because we’re bigger than them [as a team] obviously,” Bullen said. “It felt really good to put a full game together. With Pangio and Dom in foul trouble, we had to start scoring.

“We like to see each other do well. When Scotty hits a ‘3’ I love it. When I hit a ‘3’ we love it.”

The Falcons (4-3, 2-2 AAC) will utilize both every way they can. Bullen is 5-foot-9 and 150 pounds on a good day and Duffy is probably 10 pounds lighter. The former has few equals in quickness up the court and in the lane while the latter can make shots from anywhere.

Both can and will handle the ball, according to Bullen.

“Whoever gets the ball, run it,” he said. “If we can get into transition we want to first, but if not we’ll slow down and go inside.”

Bullen capped the dominant first eight minutes with 3-pointers in transition on back-to-back possessions.

“One of my worries was that we had a two-week break,” Beany said. “How are we going to come out? But we did and came out sharp. All facets of the game were working.

“Our inside game was good. Our outside game was good. The kids did a nice job.”

Bullen scored five more points in the second quarter as Duffy started heating up. He buried two 3-pointers in the quarter and Fitch led 34-6.

With Canfield forced to spread its defense to take away outside shooting Pangio and DiFrancesco found enough room to score 13 and 14, respectively.

Canfield struggled in any and all aspects. In the first-quarter disaster, Fitch recorded more steals — five — than Canfield had points.

The Cardinals (5-3) made just six field goals inside the arc for the game as Fitch’s size and frontcourt depth eliminated any hopes of inside scoring. Shots from distance were off the mark too.

“They’re a great team,” said Canfield coach Todd Muckelroy. “I thought we’d put forth a better effort here, but it just seems like bad went to worse. We’ll bounce back. We see these guys again in about nine days so we’ll go back to the drawing board and get back to basics.

“We’re kind of used to playing against teams that are bigger than us, but obviously their bigs are very assertive in the post. They do a lot of things right and we’re so keyed in on taking away the inside and they start shooting well from the outside.

“Everything we tried to do, they countered it.”