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Ursuline loses edge against SVSM
St. Vincent St. Mary vs Ursuline
Gallery
Akron wins regional rematch
By Greg Gulas
URSULINE
Jayvon Graves’ 27 points led three St. Vincent-St. Mary players in double-figures and the Akron team overcame a sluggish first period to defeat Ursuline, 72-55 Friday at the John J. and Janet Cafaro Gymnasium.
Justin Sampson had 16 points and Lundon McDay added 13 markers for St. Vincent-St. Mary, now 2-0 on the campaign.
“Ursuline plays hard all the time. It’s always good to play them because they bring out the best in our team,” Graves said. “We knew that this was going to be a tough game at their place. We turned it up in the second half with pressure, got some key stops and felt more confident than in the opening half. This was a nice win, but there’s definitely room for improvement. There’s always room for improvement.”
Ursuline raced to the early 10-8 lead and when Dakota Hobbs hit a bucket from the right with under a minute to play. SVSM (2-1) then built a 14-10 advantage.
St. Vincent-St. Mary scored five of the last seven points in the session, however, to cut the margin to 16-15 heading to the second frame.
Hobbs would notch seven of his 15 points in the opening stanza.
“We started out attacking them, which was our game plan but then in the second half we stopped competing as much,” Hobbs said. “They started to make plays and we didn’t get the production that we needed out of everyone. That’s when the game started to turn.”
Just under a minute into the second quarter Hobbs connected on two of his three charity tosses for an 18-17 margin, but Graves scored his team’s next 10 points on two free throws, a bucket and two triples over a 1:22 span for a 27-20 margin and a deficit Ursuline (1-1) could not overcome.
They built a 39-24 lead with 46 seconds remaining in the half, but consecutive triples by Ursuline’s Vince Venezio helped cut the lead to 39-30 at the intermission.
“I thought [Jayvon] Graves really hurt us, making some ‘threes’ off the dribble. I didn’t think we were competitive enough against him,” Ursuline head coach Keith Gunther said. “I thought we missed a lot of easy buckets in the second quarter and some of that was caused by how they turned their defense up a notch. We needed to be a little more competitive. At one point in the third quarter it was an eight-point game. We had the ball, but missed three good looks.”
Anthony Howell’s bucket in the lane at 3:05 of the third period pulled Ursuline to within 43-37, but St. Vincent-St. Mary then went on an 8-3 run to close the quarter as they built a 51-40 lead with a quarter remaining.
“The first quarter went back and forth and we were able to create some space in the second period,” SVSM coach Dru Joyce said. “Jayvon is Jayvon. He’s shown that there’s very few high school players that can stop him one-on-one when he gets it going and he’s got an arsenal. He can shoot it outside. He can take it to the rim and he’s got a fade-away. He’s got the whole package and I’m just glad that he’s on our side.”
Sampson then canned nine of his points and Graves added eight more in the final quarter to seal the victory.
St. Vincent-St. Mary shot 69 percent from the field, canning 26 of 44 shots while Ursuline was held to 18 of 42 overall and just eight of 24 from beyond the arc.