43
Warren Harding unable to scale Garfield Heights
Culver, Johnson
double-doubles
are not enough
By BRIAN DZENIS
CLEVELAND
Warren Harding missed that something extra it needed to get to a regional final.
The Raiders were right there, trailing by just single digits after each quarter, but couldn’t summon that extra bit of scoring needed to best Garfield Heights on Wednesday at Cleveland State’s Wolstein Center.
The Bulldogs completed the tight-rope act with a 49-43 victory.
The Raiders out-rebounded the Bulldogs. Both teams shot 37.5 percent from the floor and while Harding’s marquee players didn’t have their best games, neither did Garfield Heights.
“One thing I’ll give my guys a ton of credit for is we didn’t shoot the ball well and we still guarded our butts off,” Harding coach Andy Vlajkovich said. “That’s a sign of a mature basketball team. When 16- to 17-year-olds don’t make shots, they typically stop guarding and our guys didn’t do that.
“They did everything they could to try and win the game,” Vlajkovich said.
Garfield Heights (20-4) boasts four Division I college basketball commits on its roster and another prospect who is uncommitted. There’s Frankie Hughes (Louisville), Willie Jackson (Missouri), Marreon Jackson (Toledo) and Braun Hartfield (Youngstown State). All but Hughes were held to single digits. Hughes scored 10 points.
It was the uncommitted, yet highly-respected junior shooting guard Shawn Christian who was the x-factor. He was 5-for-7 from beyond the arc in a 23-point performance for the Bulldogs.
Harding’s prominent prospect, junior Derek Culver, acquitted himself well while matched up with Jackson. He finished with 16 points and 12 rebounds and was the go-to guy on offense for the Raiders.
“I didn’t know I was going to get the ball as much as I did, and honestly, it’s the last thing I could have cared about,” Culver said. “I cared about getting this win as a collective group and we fell short tonight, but I’m proud of us.”
Shakem Johnson also had a double-double with 13 points and 12 rebounds. Garfield Heights can live with Culver’s numbers, because the Bulldogs met their defensive goal of stopping point guard Gabe Simpson. He was 2-for-12 from the floor and finished with five points.
“To us, [Simpson] is their best player. I think they ran a lot of stuff for him,” Garfield Heights coach Sonny Johnson said. “He changes pace well, he scores, he gets the big guys easy layups and a big part of what we wanted to do was contain him.”
Harding (23-4) trailed just 41-39 after three quarters, but didn’t score in the fourth until Lynn Bowden got a layup with 3:43 left. Johnson got Harding within two points of tying the game with a minute to play, but the Raiders did not score again.
Both teams were content to play slow to close out the game. Garfield Heights wanted to burn clock and Harding wanted the game to stay close.
“I feel better with three minutes down four than I do with three minutes down eight and you have to over-extend it,” Vlajkovich said. “We tried to keep it [slow] because we felt we were within striking distance.”
Garfield had two more perfect trips to the line in the final minute to seal the win.