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Jacubec’s shooting lifts ’Cats over ’Dogs
By ERIC FORTUNE
STRUTHERS
For the first 14 minutes of the first half, the Poland Bulldogs controlled the tempo of the game.
Then as Ken Grisdale described it, the Bulldogs missed a couple of layups, took some ill-advised shots and had a shot at the buzzer was waved off as things started to go south.
Those final two minutes continued into a rough second half as the Struthers Wildcats prevailed 50-41 in an All-American Conference, White Tier matchup Friday night.
“I think they got the momentum at that point,” Grisdale said. “We had quite a few good looks in the second half and give Struthers credit defensively. They had hands in the face and played physical and they were able to challenge our shots. They just didn’t fall. We’re not a great shooting team. We’re more of a grinding team.”
Poland (4-3, 1-2) seemed in control of the game after building a 22-14 lead with roughly two minutes left in the half after a Dan Kramer bucket. The Bulldogs had overcome Jaret Jacubec’s four 3-pointers as he scored 12 of Struthers’ 19 first-half points,
“That was one of the biggest grinder halves we had just to stay in the game,” Struthers coach James Franceschelli said. “They had a couple of chances there to pull away. We buckled down and did what we had to do.”
Jacubec led all scorers with 18 points.
“A lot of people don’t know who he is,” Franceschelli said. “He can absolutely shoot it, no doubt about it. When he’s in a rhythm, it’s pretty much going in. He’s a confidence guy. When one goes in, we have to get him the ball.”
The Wildcats (8-1, 4-0) took a 24-19 game in which they trailed at the half and flipped it to a 35-28 advantage heading into the final quarter.
“We were kind of hanging on right there at halftime,” Grisdale said. “We needed a couple of shots to fall. If we could have extended the lead a little bit, we would have controlled the tempo. It turned their way. We weren’t able to recover.”
Braeden O’Shaughnessy led the Bulldogs with 15 points and Kramer had 14, but Poland couldn’t get shots to fall in the third quarter, going 1 for 12 after shooting 50 percent from the floor in the first half.
“I think a lot of that had to do with our defense,” Franceschelli said. “In the first half, they were getting easy slips for layups. We wanted to get up on them and make them take tough shots and focus on what we needed to do.”
The Bulldogs got it within five after a Kyle Patterson bucket in the final quarter, but saw the Wildcats extended it out to 14 at 46-32 with less than three minutes to play in regulation.