Burkert, Poland dominate Crestwood in sectional rout

March 7, 2015 at 12:00a.m.

POLAND

The only loss suffered by the Poland Bulldogs during the 2015 portion of their schedule came at the hands of Warren Harding on Jan. 3.

Since that time, they’ve reeled off 16 straight wins and while head coach Ken Grisdale feels like team has continually improved, he also feels that their best basketball is still ahead of them.

After Friday’s 89-51 win over Crestwood High in the sectional finals, the Red Devils have to be glad they didn’t catch the Bulldogs at their very best.

Jared Burkert scored a game-high 20 points and the Bulldogs knocked down 12 buckets from beyond the arc to advance to Wednesday’s district semifinal contest against the Struthers Wildcats at Warren Harding High School.

The Wildcats punched their district ticket with a 53-36 win over the Lakeview Bulldogs.

“Our strength is our ability to shoot the ball and when you combine that with unselfish play, it’s easy to understand why we are getting good shots,” Grisdale said. “You strive for perfection and while we’ve played well at both ends of the court, we still have yet to play a complete, 32-minute game.”

Poland (21-2) scored the first nine points of the game and with Jacob Burns netting all six of his points on the night, the Bulldogs raced to a 17-12 advantage after the opening frame.

A 17-5 run to start the second quarter, keyed by Burkert’s 12 markers helped the Bulldogs forge a 47-23 halftime lead.

While 12 Bulldogs found their way into the scoring column, seven points by Nick Gajdos and most especially his floor leadership was what stood out to Grisdale.

“Nick has played exceptionally well for us all year. He sees the court as well any player that I’ve had here and distributes the ball really well. He’s the guy who gets us to our spots and where we need to be,” Grisdale said. “We have a lot of nice pieces, but Nick is our floor leader and we’ll go as far as he can take us.”

Gajdos, who scored all of his points in the opening half, said being an unselfish team has been the key to Poland’s success.

“We wanted to get out in transition and find open looks because that’s what we do best. Being unselfish is a huge part of our success,” Gajdos said. “We saw everything starting to some together a few weeks ago, but need to keep that up if we expect to advance.”

The Bulldogs hit seven of their 12 3-pointers in the second half and outscored Crestwood, 42-28 to finish undefeated (12-0) at home.

The Red Devils (6-18) ended their season with a 2-10 road mark.