Wellsville pours it on to upset top seed Lisbon

March 2, 2016 at 12:09a.m.

STRUTHERS

At the end of the third quarter of Tuesday’s Division IV district semifinal at Struthers Fieldhouse, water was dripping onto the court.

For the Mahoning Valley’s best small school basketball team, the symbolism was hard to miss as the Tigers had flooded the scoreboard for a 17-point lead against the only team boasting four 1,000-point career scorers.

Sometimes when it rains, it pours.

Mike Shope scored 26 points and Justin Miller 24 as the Tigers (20-5) upset the Blue Devils (23-1), 74-55, to advance to Friday’s district final against McDonald.

“They just played better than us, I’ll be honest,” said Austin Rutecki, Lisbon’s all-time leading scorer with more than 1,400 points. “They hit shots, we weren’t. They executed well, so congrats to them.”

In Inter-Tri County League play, Wellsville coach David Thompson said his team lost by 30 and 18 points. What was the difference this time?

“Zone,” Thompson said. “That’s the way to win big games — do something that’s not been done before.

“It worked.”

Thompson said the key was stopping point guard Josh Liberati’s drives.

“We tried to stay in front of him,” Thompson said. “If he can’t get to the bucket, their offense [struggles].”

Ahead 12-9, the Tigers closed the first quarter with a 9-2 surge that saw Miller score five points and Jake Green four.

The lead grew to 25-13 early in the second quarter when the Blue Devils (the undefeated ITCL White Tier champions), posted an 11-0 run that included two 3-pointers by Rutecki and one by Avery Andric.

The Tigers didn’t flinch, outscoring the Blue Devils 11-4 to close the half for a 36-28 lead.

“I knew we were going to do this because it’s hard to beat a decent team three times,” Miller said. “We had a lot of fire coming out — we got embarrassed twice so we had to repay the favor.”

After Miller hit a 3-pointer to open the third quarter, Liberati and Rutecki scored baskets to slice the deficit to seven. But that was the closest the Blue Devils could get as the Tigers posted an 11-2 run to seize control.

The Blue Devils missed 14 3-point attempts in the second half trying to get back into the game.

“Things just weren’t falling tonight,” Rutecki said. “It’s just a shame — last game of our career to go that way.

“But that’s what happens in life — you have valleys and you have peaks. It’s part of life and you’ve just got to learn from it.”

In their 100th varsity game, Rutecki scored 18 points and Andric 13 to lead Lisbon. Liberati and Josh Craig (the other 1,000-point scorers) finished with seven and six points, respectively.

“We just didn’t attack and didn’t finish,” Lisbon head coach Chris Huckshold said. “Pressure came on us more and more in each possession.”

In the locker room, Huckshold said, “the careers you seniors [including Trevor Reese and Jared White] have had can’t be judged on one night. Obviously, we didn’t play our best game. There’s not a person who can say we did and that falls on coaching, preparation, being mentally prepared.”

Next up for the Tigers is a rematch with another set of Blue Devils.

The first time?

“We got beat,” Thompson said. “It wasn’t close.

“But we’re playing different now.”