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Ryan, Traylor lead Struthers past Lakeview
By Gary Housteau
STRUTHERS
The kids were all right Friday night at the Struthers Field House.
It was Senior Night, but freshman Carson Ryan and sophomore Kevin Traylor combined for 28 points as the Wildcats avenged an overtime loss with a 52-45 victory over Lakeview.
Ryan, who scored 15 points and grabbed a team-high seven rebounds, scored seven of his of nine second-half points in the fourth quarter. Traylor scored nine of his 13 in the second half.
“I thought Carson Ryan was unbelievable tonight for a freshman, I really did,” said Struthers head coach James Franceschelli.
“Stats don’t show what he really does for us, it really doesn’t. But tonight he had some stats, he was a stat filler tonight. And he’s growing up, he’s growing up before our eyes, there ain’t no doubt about it.”
Traylor, who transferred from Campbell for his freshman year, can start the fast break as well as finish and he can shoot it from the floor as well.
“He can do that every single night, it’s just a matter of getting him in the flow and getting him going,” Franceschelli said.
“He has free reign most of the time to try get in there and score, so hopefully this performance will carry over for the next game and into the tournament.”
Traylor was happy with his overall offensive contribution.
“My teammates were giving me the ball when I needed it, when I was wide open. Everything was falling for me,” Traylor said.
“I feel confident now. I’ve been in a slump lately and [Franceschelli] has been trying to bring back my confidence and everything is working out for me. It felt good.”
Struthers jumped out to a 16-8 first-quarter lead but Lakeview closed it to 16-13 at the quarter and then continued their 10-2 run to tie it up at 18 and then taking a 21-20 lead into halftime.
Struthers was held to four points in the quarter while Lakeview scored just eight.
“Not happy about that at all,” Franceschelli said. “The really bad thing about it is that we got any shot that we wanted, they just weren’t going in. But the thing I was impressed about was on the defensive end, at least we got after it and we kept ourself in the game.”
And with the game all tied up at 37 after three quarters, Struthers upped their game on both ends of the floor.
“It was a matter of just buckling down and hitting shots and getting stops at the defensive end,” Franceschelli said.
“Any time we get stops on the defensive end we’re usually better on offense. When we get into transition, that’s our type of game.”
Lakeview lost leading scorer, Chris Muir, with a knee injury right before halftime but continued to scrap.
“I’m really proud of our kids the way they battled,” said Lakeview head coach Ryan Fitch.
“We could have easily just folded up and packed it in but we showed a little bit of character and fought through adversity and that’s a pretty good basketball team. They’ve got some good players and their the number three seed in our district so I can’t fault our effort.”