With no O, Fitch gets another L

January 28, 2015 at 12:07a.m.

AUSTINTOWN

In four out its last five games, the Fitch High boys basketball team has met its goal of holding its opponent to 60 or fewer points.

Unfortunately, that has produced mixed results.

In a physical defensive struggle, visiting Jefferson earned a 57-41 victory Tuesday over a Fitch team that certainly played well enough defensively, but never operated efficiently on the offensive end.

“There’s been some great quarters,” said Fitch coach Brian Beany, “and there’s been these quarters where we kind of just go with these empty possessions where we don’t get a shot off because of a turnover or we don’t score.

“And we’ll go in bunches where — I think we scored 17 in the first quarter — and what’d we have in the second quarter? Six? These guys have got to be able to get over that hump and that mind block of, ‘When things aren’t going well, let’s fight through it.’”

Jefferson forward Sam Hitchcock made a pair of free throws — Jefferson was 15 of 15 from the free throw line — with 4:30 left in the second to put his team ahead for good, 20-19.

Brevin White drilled a 3-pointer from the left wing on Jefferson’s next possession before James Jackson’s basket one trip later gave Jefferson a 25-19 lead.

Jefferson coach Steve French, a 27 year-old who remarkably resembles former Butler University and current Boston Celtics coach Brad Stevens, has Jefferson at 15-0 for myriad reasons. A lineup, which is now without one starter, runs only seven deep but has a strong mix of height and length.

“We haven’t had too many teams [on the schedule] as big and strong as us, but [Fitch] is one that can match it,” French said. “We know their game is to get it inside and we wanted to try and deter that. I think our big guys can go against anybody and we’re going to feed them the ball every night regardless of who we’re playing.”

Hitchcock had 26 points to lead all scorers while Jackson posted 16.

Fitch (5-8) cut Jefferson’s lead to two points on two occasions in the third quarter, but a mini-run by the visitors late in the quarter propelled them to a six point advantage headed into the fourth.

Fitch, without starting point guard Scotty Duffy due to illness for a fourth game, went cold in the final quarter where it scored only seven points.

“Those [strong defensive performances of late] should be wins,” said Beany. “But because of lack of valuing possessions and not putting the ball in the hoop ... we were at our worst from the free throw line. We shot 7 of 14.

“They were 15 of 15. You very rarely see a team make every free throw they shoot. The 7 of 14 was flat-out a mental thing. You can see the game’s getting tight and we miss a free throw, miss another free throw and usually this team’s very good at the free throw line. They weren’t tonight.

“I saw tonight for the first time guys that were not confident, second-guessing themselves and thinking, ‘What do I do?’”

Jefferson has clinched the All-American Conference White tier.