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IRISH, RAIDERS ADVANCE
By BRIAN DZENIS
BOARDMAN
Everybody in Boardman’s gymnasium knew what Ursuline’s Greg Parella was going to do and he still got it done.
With the game tied and the final 30 seconds ticking down in overtime, the senior guard took the ball to the right-hand corner of the court, just across the half-court line.
He waited. Time ticked down. Teammate Armon Nasseri walked over to Parella patting his head, signalling a screen. Parella took off to his left, the Canfield defender on him became lost in Nasseri’s screen.
He took off for the basket. Canfield big Sam DiGiacomo was waiting for him and put up an arm to block the shot. Parella switched to his left hand, went for the layup and scored.
Ursuline (19-6) took a 64-62 lead with five seconds left. Canfield’s bid to tie the game failed and the Irish earned a spot in the Division II District final.
“There’s no mystery as to why Greg Parella is a great player,” Canfield coach Todd Muckleroy said. “He makes big shots in big moments.”
Parella finished with a team-high 23 points as the Irish rallied from a brutal start.
“It’s all the hard work paying off,” Parella said about his game-winning shot. “It’s win or go home and it’s so big to make that shot for my team.”
Ursuline started the game in a 20-6 hole as Canfield (17-7) kept knocking down open threes.
The Cardinals’ Mason Mangapora scored 17 of his 23 points in the first half.
“We made a huge coaching mistake on my behalf, we were playing a zone trying to mix it up,” Ursuline coach Keith Gunther said. “I had seen a few films of them and I didn’t think they could shoot that well.
“Honestly, I think our kids took them lightly and they had a quick wake-up call,” Gunther said.
The Irish trailed all through the first half, but started to get some momentum near the end of the second quarter.
The team got a spark from a two-on-one fast break that ended with Nasseri dunking and ended the half on a 6-0 run.
That momentum carried over into the second half. The Ursuline defense improved drastically and the Irish took the lead going into the fourth quarter.
“They couldn’t miss and we knew it. If we played hard defensively, we knew we could come back,” Parella said. “We created turnovers, they started missing and we made our shots.”
Mangapora couldn’t get off a shot in the third quarter as the Irish’s Mike Hughes spent the rest of the game face-guarding the Canfield senior.
“They were putting a lot of pressure on our guards. They made it hard to pass,” Mangapora said. “I credit [Hughes], he really go up on me and made it hard to get the ball.
“We tried to get other people involved, but shots didn’t go in for us,” Mangapora said.
Canfield had a chance to put the game away with a possession of the ball and a 59-57 lead with 39 seconds left in a regulation. But a costly turnover allowed Nasseri the chance to tie the game with 13 seconds left.
Nasseri finished the game with 17 points and Anthony Howell added 10 in the win.
Ursuline will face the winner between Poland and Salem.
“It was just a great high school basketball game,” Gunther said.
“If we would have lost, I would have told you the same thing.”