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Sembach hits milestones with much on the line
By CHARLES GROVE
Newton Falls High School boys basketball coach Roy Sembach has come a long way from a combined 4-38 record his first two years at the Tigers’ helm.
Now in his 29th season, Sembach just celebrated his 400th career victory, winning a district title in the process when his Tigers took down Garrettsville Garfield 49-45 last Friday.
Tonight at the Canton Fieldhouse, Newton Falls takes on reigning Division III state champion Cleveland Villa Angela-St. Joseph.
The team learned of the possibility of winning Sembach’s 400th game and winning a district title together after the Tigers dropped their regular-season finale to Crestwood.
“It was anything to motivate them,” Sembach said. “It wasn’t about getting me to 400 wins because to me they’re all program wins, but I think it gave them a little extra motivation because it’s significant to our entire basketball family.”
Sembach’s teams seem to get their timing right for these milestone victories. In 2010, the Tigers beat East Canton in Sembach’s first regional victory to give the coach 300 career wins.
“When you coach a long time, you’ll get milestones,” Sembach said. “But to get them in such significant games really makes them special. Those types of atmospheres really make them more special.”
What got Sembach to those milestones, according to assistant coach Mike Mazanetz, is Sembach’s dedication to the game and the program.
“He’s got unmatched passion,” Mazanetz said. “He lives and breathes the game. Every year I feel he gets the most out of his kids. And what’s most special is the former players always come back. The program is littered with coaches who are former players.”
Tiger senior Noah Suarez said Sembach’s dedication doesn’t go unnoticed by the players.
“One hundred percent sure we have the best coach and coaching staff in the state of Ohio,” Suarez said. “I have never [seen] another coach work so hard to make us the best team we could be.”
That work ethic doesn’t even go away once the final horn sounds and the maintenance workers are cleaning up the bleachers. The coaching staff goes over film that night in an attempt to learn as much as they can from the contest.
“The game ends, you go home, change your clothes, get a pizza and you go over to [Sembach’s] house and watch film,” Mazanetz said. “He makes notes and treats every possession like it’s a tie game in a district final. He does as much as college coaches do.”
Sembach even finds amusing ways to get his points across to his team, such as the time he used a toy dinosaur to emphasize defensive stances before this year’s district tournament.
“Before one of our games, he was getting us all hyped up and right before he walked out he pulled out this little dinosaur and said we needed to get in a defensive stance like the dinosaur,” Suarez said.
“At first, we all just laughed and didn’t know what to think but after we won districts he gave us all our own and told us we earned them.”
With 18 winning seasons in the past 19 years, Sembach said he’s able to look back on those first couple of hard-luck seasons and appreciate how far the program has come.
“Those first couple of years I didn’t know if I’d reach the five-win milestone,” Sembach said. “But that third season we turned it around and played for a district championship. From that point on things have been better.”