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Dominant first quarter leads Salem over Poland
By charles grove
BOARdMAN
In postseason basketball, one poor game can end a season. For the Poland High School boys basketball team, one poor quarter did the Bulldogs in.
“Just give me that first quarter over,” Poland coach Ken Grisdale said.
Salem outscored Poland 18-1 in the first quarter on its way to Thursday’s 70-66 win over the top-seeded Bulldogs in a Division II district semifinal at Boardman High School. The Quakers move on to play Ursuline in a district final on Saturday.
Chase Ackerman led Salem (13-12) with 20 points while Jon Gerace had 18 points in his first game back from a two-game suspension. Mitch Davidson scored 12 points, 10 of which came in the second half, and Garrett Dickey added 10 as well.
For Poland (18-6), Braeden O’Shaungnessy scored a game-high 28 points, hitting five 3-pointers, while Daniel Kramer finished with 16 and Kyle Patterson 12.
It was apparent from the opening tip who was playing harder. Salem forced Poland into 10 turnovers in the opening eight minutes and was diving on the floor for loose balls nearly every possession. Poland didn’t score a field goal until 10 seconds into the second quarter.
“We had scouted them and we felt we knew some of the sets they would run and they just happened to run things we had worked on,” Salem coach Rich Hart said. “We were concentrating on keeping everything out of the paint and pushing everything outside. Our kids did a nice job of that.”
Ackerman said with Gerace back on the floor, everything felt like it was supposed to in that first quarter.
“I just thought, ‘This is who we are,’” Ackerman said. “This is exactly how we’re supposed to play now that we got John back.
“I wasn’t surprised.”
Hart’s message to his team at the end of a nearly perfect first quarter was that his team needed to play like the game was still tied.
“[We told them] it’s still nothing-nothing,” Hart said. “It’s never a big enough lead when you’re playing Poland. As you can see we needed every one of those points.”
Things looked like they were getting out of hand early in the second quarter when Salem started on a 7-2 run to make it 25-3 that was capped off by a dunk from Gerace. But Poland’s full-court press flipped the table and the Bulldogs began to look like a number-one seed.
O’Shaungnessy had three 3-pointers in the second quarter and the Bulldogs battled back to get within eight, 31-23 at halftime.
The teams mainly traded baskets in the third quarter and the fat lady was going through her chord progressions after Salem’s Turner Johnson had back-to-back-to-back fastbreak layups to make it 63-47 with under three minutes to play. But then Poland’s press kicked it up a notch again.
“[The press] got us moving,” Grisdale said. “Maybe that’s the reason we didn’t get our motor going at the beginning the way we needed to.”
The final few minutes was a cavalcade of Poland steals and Salem miscues as the Quakers had difficulty making it to half court. A layup by Kramer cut the Salem lead to 67-62 with 40 seconds left and Salem made just one of their next three foul shots to keep the door open.
Ackerman fouled out after another Poland steal with 18 seconds to go, but Billy Orr missed two free throws and Salem was able to escape with the victory.
“This feels pretty good,” Ackerman said. “We’re the first [Salem] team in awhile to play for a district title. It’s exciting and we’re ready for it.”