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Battle-tested Ursuline ready for regional
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Ursuline guard Greg Parella, right, will help lead the Irish against Canton Central Catholic in a Division III regional semifinal on Wednesday at the Canton Fieldhouse. The Irish defeated the Crusaders 58-48 on Jan. 17.
By Joe Scalzo
YOUNGSTOWN
Ursuline High boys basketball coach Keith Gunther knows his team hasn’t been tested in the tournament so far.
That was kind of the point.
“That’s why we play a brutal [regular season] schedule,” he said. “It’s not always about winning and losing. It’s about playing some upper-level competition and trying to prepare for the tournament.”
One of those opponents was Canton Central Catholic (18-5), which lost to the Irish 58-48 on Jan. 17 but will get another shot in Wednesday’s Division III regional semifinal at the Canton Fieldhouse.
Central took a seven-point lead on Ursuline in the third quarter of that game, but senior guard Mark Hughes scored 11 of his 21 points in the fourth quarter to rally the Irish.
“I know when they played us, they felt like they let one get away,” said Gunther, who is making his sixth regional appearance in 11 years. “They play similar to us. They shoot a lot of 3s and they really want to get it up and down, so it’s gonna be a good matchup for us.”
Gunther believes this year’s Irish are the first in Ursuline history to win 20 games — the 1994 state championship team only went 10-10 during the regular season — and the first to win back-to-back district titles. Last year’s run ended in the regional final against Cleveland Villa Angela-St. Joseph, which beat Ursuline 69-60 en route to a state runner-up finish. (Central lost to VASJ 72-64 in last year’s regional semifinal.)
“Hopefully we can get back to that point,” Gunther said of the regional final. “But our whole focus right now is to make sure we take care of Wednesday. You can’t get to Joe’s if you don’t beat Central.”
Central is led by first team all-district selection Christian Creamer, who averaged 13.2 points per game this season. Senior Jerry Leatherman, a second team choice, added 11.9 points, while special mention honoree Mark Mokros scored 22 against the Irish in the teams’ January meeting.
VASJ, which will meet Massillon Tuslaw in Wednesday’s semifinal, is led by 6-foot-8 Kansas recruit Carlton Bragg. He’s one of five Vikings who stands 6-4 or taller.
“We make our schedule for them,” Irish junior Greg Parella said following Friday’s district championship win over Girard. “We’ve been waiting for them the whole year and we think it’ll be a good game.”
When asked if there’s anything the Irish can do to get taller this week, Parella held his hands 4 inches apart and said, “Our coach says the difference between a 6-4 guy and a 6-8 is only that much.”
While VASJ has a size advantage, it doesn’t have a schedule advantage. Two of Ursuline’s losses came against district champions — Shaker Heights (which beat Warren Harding in Saturday’s Division I district final) and Akron St. Vincent-St. Mary (which will play Poland in Thursday’s Division II semifinals) and two others were against Division I programs in Cleveland St. Ignatius and Massillon. (Mooney was the other loss.)
“Our schedule was so brutal this year, we were used to the speed of the game being so much faster,” said Gunther, whose team won its first four tournament games by an average of 41.5 points. “We were battle-tested and it kind of transferred to the district.”
And if things go as planned, it will transfer to the regional, too.