Raiders share points in win vs. East

January 12, 2017 at 12:09a.m.

Bowden cracks 1,000 in victory

WARREN

Warren Harding has taken hits this season, but the Raiders think they’re turning a corner.

Harding knocked down East, 79-64, at home Wednesday night, snapping a two-game losing streak.

“We can be really good,” Raiders guard Tiryn Frank said. “We’ve had some adversity, but we’re a brand new team and now that we’ve gone through that, we’re going to be really good.”

The Raiders 5-6 record is a little misleading. Four of those losses include reigning Pa. state champion Kennedy Catholic and state powers Akron Saint Vincent-Saint Mary, Cleveland St. Ignatius and Cleveland Heights. Harding opened the season with losses to Boardman and Poland.

”We went through a tough stretch in the schedule and we got beat up a little bit, but that makes you tougher,” Harding coach Andy Vlajkovich said. “We’re a family and we’re back on track and we’ll keep it on track.”

Lynn Bowden led the Raiders with 19 points and in the second quarter, crossed the 1,000-point milestone for his career. There were four other Harding players in double figures. Marlin Richardson scored 17 points, Frank had 12 and Kemon’Dre Muhammad contributed 11. West Virginia commit Derek Culver at the game, but didn’t play due to a violation of team rules, Vlajkovich said.

East’s (6-4) Achilles’s heel continues to be free throws. Despite the Panthers going into the bonus in the first quarter, they couldn’t do anything with it. They shot 9-15 from the line.

“We work on free throws for a half hour a day. I don’t know if it’s getting out there, but I’m looking for a solution,” East coach Dennis Simmons said. “You’re not going to win games if you don’t make free throws. We can play with anybody, but we’ve got to make free throws and layups.”

Harding struggled just as much from the line, going 13-21. East’s high-paced offense kept it around in the contest as the Panthers were down by only 35-31 at halftime.

“East is vastly improved. They’re hard to guard. They put their head down and they drive at you,” Vlajkovich said. “I mean this as a complement, they play with reckless abandon.

“Our transition defense? I told the guys it looked like a bad NBA game on Tuesday night. We didn’t guard anybody,” he added.

Harding’s offense had different players step up at different times. Richardson had half his points in the first quarter. Hughes had eight of his 10 in the second. Frank got hot in the third with three consecutive threes.

“I told Lynn Bowden I was feeling it. I was hitting shots at halftime and I told him to swing me one and see what I do with it,” Frank said. “I made it and then I told him ‘it’s heat-check now.’ Until I miss, I’m going to keep shooting.”

The deathblow came in a 13-3 Harding run in the fourth quarter. Richardson made two more threes and Bowden scored eight points in the fourth quarter.

“We started swinging the ball. We were going in the paint and we were missing shots,” Frank said. “They were slowing us down, but we found our rhythm and started hitting shots.”

Ce’andre Backus led East with 21 points and Terrell Weaver added 15 in a losing cause.