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Minus Culver, Harding falls
By ERIC FORTUNE
WARREN
With the Poland High School basketball team rebuilding from graduation, no one would have been surprised if Warren Harding led by West Virginia commit Derek Culver earned its first win.
But Culver and Lynn Bowden weren’t in Tuesday’s lineup for the
Raiders, who lost their opener by one point in Boardman.
At home, the Raiders dropped another close game, losing 51-50 to Poland.
“Lynn is taking care of personal matters and Derek was not in school,” Raiders coach Andy Vlajkovich said of the major absences.
During the final minute and 14 seconds of the game, there were five lead changes between the Raiders (0-2) and Bulldogs (2-0).
After Dan Kramer’s bucket made it 49-48 in favor of the Bulldogs with 34.6 seconds remaining, Harding’s Mike Hughes’ attempt in traffic on the ensuing possession wouldn’t fall,
However a foul on the shot got him to the charity stripe where he made both to put the Raiders back on top with 18.6 seconds to go.
The Bulldogs responded when Braeden O’Shaungnessy’s floater in the paint put Poland back on top with 2.3 seconds left. The Raiders’ final attempt didn’t fall.
“That was a set play that we tried to run,” Poland coach Ken Grisdale said of the winning basket. “We tried to create traffic. We clear it and we bring our big guy and then give it back and let Braeden find the hole.
“He did a great job. What can you say?”
During those final 16.3 seconds, Vlajkovich believed the Raiders’ Andrew Ziegler slipped on a switch which gave O’Shaungnessy an open lane to the bucket.
“I got the ball and I thought they’d step up and I would kick it to Konnor Morse or Kyle Patterson in the corner, but no one ever came up to stop me so I just kept going and put up the shot and it went in,” O’Shaungnessy said.
After a back-and-forth affair in the opening quarter, the Raiders seemed to have figured out the Bulldogs after Poland jumped out 18-12 lead after Morse’s 3-pointer.
Harding closed out the second quarter on a 16-4 run to take a 28-22 lead at the half.
Instead of building on the momentum, the Raiders watched as the
Bulldogs made the necessary adjustments and shot 7-of-10 in the third quarter and 14-of-19 overall in the second half outscoring the Raiders 29-22.
The Raiders were also hurt on the glass as Poland outrebounded the Raiders 32-13.
Tiryn Frank and Mike Hughes led the Raiders with 14 points each.