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After slow start, unbeaten LaBrae dismantles Middlefield Cardinal
By DAN HINER
LEAVITTSBURG
The LaBrae boys basketball team easily won its Division III sectional semifinal against Cardinal on Tuesday night. The Vikings rolled over Middlefield Cardinal 89-43, but LaBrae head coach Chad Kiser wasn’t pleased with the way his team performed in the first half.
“We held the ball and didn’t move without the ball. We didn’t get into our defensive rotations, we weren’t on our rotations and pressures,” Kiser said. “Even the way we defended before the ball comes inbounds wasn’t what we normally do.
“Our guys didn’t come out ready in the first quarter. It was kind of a feeling-out process. It took us a while, but the second quarter was much better. I think we outscored them 23-8 in the second quarter. We got our tempo and movement better, and it started to roll from there.”
Cardinal (6-17) was in the game until the final 4:30 of the second quarter. Cardinal trailed 24-21 at that point, but the Vikings outscored the Huskies 24-2 over the next seven minutes.
That’s when LaBrae’s Tariq Drake and Carlton Brown started taking over the game. Drake and Brown combined to score 14 points in the second and third quarters.
Drake only scored one basket in the third quarter, but it was a big one. At the start of the third quarter, Drake caught an alley-oop pass on the right baseline and dunked the ball for the Vikings’ first points of the second half.
Brown tied a team-high with 15 points and grabbed four rebounds and two steals. Drake scored 14 along with six rebounds and two steals.
Kiser said the defense from Brown and Drake helped create fast break chances and transition scoring.
“We started moving the ball in transition instead of over-dribbling,” Kiser said. “I thought early on we were dribbling too much instead of passing the ball ahead. But I think we were finally able to get in transition, [get] some easy passes and start to finish.”
After Brown and Drake took over, LaBrae guard Aaron Iler started to score. Iler scored 11 of his 15 points in the second half.
LaBrae (22-0) got back on track defensively as well. After the 4:30 mark, the Vikings held Cardinal to 22 points for the rest of the game and 11 of 32 (34.3 percent) shooting the rest of the night.
Kiser said the team didn’t look sharp in the first quarter and let the Huskies get into a rhythm. The reason the Vikings opted against the first round bye was so the team didn’t take too much time off.
Kiser said he’s glad the team made the decision in hindsight because they needed a quarter and a half to knock the rust off.
“We had a week off. We went from Tuesday to Tuesday. I think that played a little part in that slow start,” Kiser said. “It’s one of the reasons we didn’t take the bye, we didn’t want 10 days in between games. This gave us a chance to get a game in within a week. Now we’ll get back into a rhythm of Tuesdays and Fridays this week.
“I think we’ll be a little sharper come Friday to start the game. We’ll get two good practices in, like we’re used to before a game. They’ll be ready, I think they’ll be ready. We learned a couple things tonight about starting slow again. I think we’ll come out of the gate ready to go on Friday.”