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McDonald celebrate’s Rasile’s 300th
By ERIC FORTUNE
MCDONALD
During his tenure as the coach of the McDonald boys basketball program, Jeff Rasile’s teams have played for a district title in 11 of the last 12 years and won seven Inter-Tri County League championships since 2006.
And there was that stretch where the Blue Devils tied Liberty for the longest regular season winning streak in Trumbull County history (63 games).
Friday, Rasile and McDonald celebrated more milestones in an 85-59 victory over Sebring. The coach earned his 300th victory while the Blue Devils (19-3, 9-1 ITCL White) clinched another league title.
“It’s 16 years of coaching basketball,” Rasile said. “You obviously see how I am. It’s paid a toll on my body, I think.
“I think I have a popped rib,” Rasile said. “It’s a credit to all the kids who have come through the system, at Champion for four years, 12 years at McDonald, and all of my coaches.
“I don’t think that is so much an achievement for me as much it is for our program and for our kids,” Rasile said. “We’ve been very blessed here. We’ve had some great teams and some great runs.”
Evan Magill led the Blue Devils with 22 points. Also scoring in double figures were Braedon Poole with 13 points and Jake Reckard with 12.
“At McDonald, we’re averaging 20 wins a year over 12 years,” Rasile said. “It’s pretty successful. I just want to think the coaches and the kids that have come through. I’ve had some great people around me. It’s a credit to them.”
After a back-and-forth affair in the opening quarter, the Blue Devils turned a 22-20 advantage into an 18-point lead.
“They came up and got into their 100 press and got a little more aggressive and our guys weren’t able to get free,” Sebring coach Josh Scott said. “They are very good at playing with their hands.
“Our guys had a hard time at getting open,” Scott said. “We ended up turning the ball over more than we wanted. It really came down to turning the ball over too much from our end.”
After scoring 20 points in the opening quarter, the Trojans scored just 39 over the final three with Jason Dickson and Robbie Rouse scoring 14 and 13 points, respectfully.
The Blue Devils continued to stay on the attack in the second half but were a bit sloppier with the ball than Rasile would prefer. However, the closest the Trojans (13-7, 5-4) got the rest of the game was 13 during the third quarter.
“It was not the cleanest game,” Rasile said. We’ll take it and we’ll walk away. We score 85 points and probably had 25 turnovers — sloppy basketball on our part.
“We have a week off before the tournament and we’ll try to straighten some things out,” Rasile said. “We obviously need to play better basketball and take care of the ball if we want to win a district championship.”