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South Range not sharp, but wins anyway
BEAVER TOWNSHIP
It was not one of the better performances of the season for South Range, considering how Raiders head coach John Cullen described a 44-29 Division III sectional semifinal victory over East Palestine on Tuesday night.
“To hunt for a positive in that game ... man,” Cullen said. “Since we played such bad defense and only gave up 14 points in the first half, we didn’t want them to get 30. Not from a standpoint of cockiness or anything else, we just wanted to do something consistently throughout the rest of the game. So we did achieve that one goal, which meant we had to play hard every possession.”
South Range (22-1) defeated East Palestine both times they played in the regular season, scoring in the 80s both games.
“Offensively we didn’t do many things right tonight,” Cullen said. “Give them credit, they played us much tougher than they have the last three years, but we also have to take ownership of the fact that we played them poorer than we have for the last three years.”
South Range led 12-8 after one quarter and 23-14 at the intermission. Senior Taymer Graham had four points at the half but ended up with a game-high 11 points and added five rebounds.
“All four of us seniors got together at halftime and said, ‘Let’s get it going, we have to step it up,’ ” Graham said. “We understand that we should win this game but nothing is given to you so I just tried to go back out there and play as hard as I could. A win’s a win so I’m happy with that.”
By the end of the third quarter South Range stretched the lead out to 13 at 36-23. Junior Brandon Youngs chipped in with nine points while Anthony Ritter added eight points and nine rebounds to the Raiders’ winning cause.
East Palestine head coach L.J. Sutton knew his team couldn’t stand pat against South Range.
“We’ve been working on an entirely new offense and defense as well for three weeks, so our guys were prepared,” Sutton said. “I think about 10 possessions in the game really hurt us and against a team coached by John Cullen you can’t make mistakes at all.”
Branden Kemp and Jeremy Reynolds both scored seven points to lead the way offensively for East Palestine (7-15) while Clayton Murry had six points and a team-high six rebounds.
“We looked pretty decent here tonight and most importantly we played defense tonight,” Sutton said. “Last year they were a three-win team so to win four more games than they won last year is a testament to everyone that came in and bought into the system.”
For South Range it was the first game after their lone loss of the season to LaBrae.
“I don’t think LaBrae had anything to do with this game, I think this was more ourselves,” Cullen said. “Tonight we weren’t quite the same, mentally, as we normally are. We’re usually a very strong mental team so we’ll try to make that correction and I’m sure the kids will because it’s very important to them. So that will be our goal against Campbell. What we need to do is play a very good game against Campbell.”
The Raiders and Red Devils will meet at 7 p.m. Friday at South Range.