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quiet confidence
Warren JFK faces a familiar challenge in St. Thomas Aquinas
GIRARD
Something unprecedented happened in the North Coast League this year. Five of the six boys basketball teams that make up the league’s white division won district championships.
That group includes Warren JFK and Louisville St. Thomas Aquinas, who will meet tonight in a Division IV regional semifinal at the Canton Fieldhouse. For those keeping track at home, the others are Cleveland Villa Angela-St. Joseph and Cleveland Central Catholic, who are both in Division III, and Holy Name in Division II.
As expected, JFK and Aquinas are quite familiar with each other after two regular-season meetings — both of which went to the Knights. In fact, the Eagles were out-scored in those games by a combined 37 points.
“The regular season really doesn’t matter in the tournament,” Eagles senior A.J. Grant said Monday during a practice session at Saint Rose Catholic School.
“Anything can happen.”
If anyone knows that, it’s Aquinas. The Knights entered last season’s Div. IV tournament with a .500 record before they reeled off seven straight wins to reach the state championship game. They lost to top-ranked Convoy Crestview, who finished the season unbeaten, but nobody could’ve envisioned a postseason run like that.
The Eagles (13-11) are hoping for a similar fate.
“I feel like we’ve learned a lot from those two games, especially the one up there,” senior Michael Roscoe said. “It wasn’t a close game [the Knights won 74-45]. I think we learned a lot about ourselves, but more so I think we learned a lot about them.”
The challenge will be stopping the Knights. Aquinas (21-4) likes to push the ball in transition and use its tempo to create open looks from behind the arc, which it seemed to do so effortlessly in the regular-season finale win over the Eagles. JFK’s biggest challenge will be limiting the Knights from the perimeter.
“They’re gonna wanna get up and down the floor, they’re gonna wanna shoot the three,” senior Luke Keck said. “We know that about them and it’s our job to stop it.”
While the Eagles have yet to prove they can, that doesn’t mean they’re lacking confidence. With nine seniors, head coach John Richards has plenty of leaders on the court and in the locker room. That’s a big reason why they’ve been able to steady the ship during a choppy regular season.
“We’ve been through a lot over the last four years,” Keck said. “But our senior class is really close and that’s helped us out a lot.”
So no pressure tonight, being that it could be the group’s last game together?
“Our way of getting ready is just kind of having fun together,” Keck said. “That’s the way it’s always been for us. But we’re all business when game time comes.”
A healthy team is the driving force behind their belief. JFK missed 6-foot-4 forward James Burney for seven games due to injury in the early part of the season. In addition, 6-foot-7 big man Zach Usher is finally feeling good after injury slowed him in the early going. Usher is averaging a double-double and Burney is the Eagles go-to scorer in many spots.
“We’re playing great right now and we’re working really hard,” Roscoe said. “We’re real confident about [tonight].”