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Springfield holds off Lisbon in a thriller
By Ryan Buck
SALEM
Beating a team twice in one season is difficult. Three times only intensifies the challenge.
That was the task set before the Springfield High boys basketball team Tuesday night in a Division III district semifinal at Salem.
The unbeaten and top-seeded Tigers bullied Inter Tri-County League rival Lisbon in two regular-season victories. Tuesday night’s thriller was far closer, but, like, the first two games went the way of Springfield.
Two Brandon Chamberlain 3-pointers on consecutive possessions gave Springfield the lead midway through the fourth quarter and Eric Fender’s club gutted out a 55-53 triumph that went down to the final sequence, before a standing room-only crowd.
Springfield (24-0), the fourth-ranked team in the final regular season state poll, will now meet Canton Central Catholic in the district final Friday at Salem.
“To beat [Lisbon] twice in the regular season, we played well,” Fender said. “We knew we’d need to play really well tonight in order to win for a third time. Some things just ended up falling our way. We were able to make a few more free throws. We were able to make a few clutch shots at certain times, but [Lisbon] played well.
“Their defensive game plan was right on point. We struggled with it for a while and we had to do some different things.”
Ahead 54-52 after Lisbon forward Austin Rutecki’s put-back of a missed jumper, Tigers forward Mark Schuler corralled teammate Hunter Snyder’s inbounds pass and was quickly fouled.
After missing the first of two, Schuler calmly sank the second for a three-point lead with 7.3 seconds remaining.
Lisbon guard Josh Liberati was fouled, per Fender’s call, on the rush upcourt before he could release a game-tying attempt.
He missed the front end of the one-and-one. Teammate Josh Craig swooped in for the rebound and was then promptly fouled.
Craig made his first attempt and, with only 1.1 seconds left, intentionally missed the second in hopes of setting up a teammate for a desperation game-tying put-back or tip-in.
Schuler blocked out any Lisbon leap at the basket and the ball skipped off his hands, letting time expire.
“Without a timeout, we were just drawing up and ad-libbing there at the end,” said Lisbon coach Chris Huckshold, whose team saw a 10-game win streak end. “We needed a rebound and tip-in off a miss at the end to crash and try to tie it up at the buzzer.”
Neither team led by as many as seven points as the lead changed hands seven times in the second half.
After Liberati converted a 3-point play to give the Blue Devils the lead with 6:46 left in the game, Chamberlain settled into the left corner on the Tigers’ next trip.
His shot was true and Springfield had a 43-42 lead. Following a Lisbon miss, Chamberlain looked to be tied up beyond the 3-point line, fought away and evaded a double-dribble call.
Two touches later, he squared up again with a pass from Hunter Snyder and made his fourth 3- pointer of the game for a 46-42 lead with 5:00 left.
“From hitting the 3s, I can tell you the crowd went crazy,” Chamberlain said. “It was a great feeling. It was a real momentum-swinger. We were able to get shots, get down on defense, get rebounds and we were able to find open shots like I did with those two 3s.”
Jared White scored six points in the final minutes, all off Liberati assists, to keep his team close.
Graham Mincher drove the lane for two points late and he and Snyder were a combined 4-for-4 at the line in the final minute for Springfield. Mincher led the Tigers with 18 points, Chamberlain had 14 and Snyder added nine.
Rutecki led Lisbon with 16 points, White had 12 and Josh Craig added 11.
The Blue Devils ended Springfield’s 2014 season in the same round at the same site.
“We didn’t want to go out by Lisbon in the district semis yet again,” Chamberlain said. “Considering its our senior year, for seven of us, we didn’t want to stop playing.”