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Rasile scores 43, but Niles holds off McDonald
By Steve ruman
MCDONALD
Friday’s game between McDonald and Niles was hyped as a showdown between the area’s two most prolific scorers. Blue Devils junior Zach Rasile entered the night averaging 36 points, while Red Dragons senior Cyler Kane-Johnson was at 29 points per game.
Both players lived up to expectations. Rasile scored a game-high 43 points and in the process became the all-time leading scorer in McDonald history.
Kane-Johnson scored 29, but also had plenty of help from his supporting cast. As a result, the Red Dragons prevailed with a 76-70 road win over the Blue Devils.
“We’re excited, this is a big win heading into 2019,” said Niles coach Doug Foster. “The kids are starting to buy in to what we are teaching. This senior class had never beaten McDonald. We knew we were going to be in a fight until the very end, because that’s who McDonald is, but we were able to hang on. This was a nice team effort.”
Senior Corbin Foy scored 14 for the Red Dragons, while senior Trent Johnson added 12 points.
Jake Portolese (13 points) was the only player other than Rasile to break the double-digit mark for McDonald (2-4).
Niles (5-3) raced out to a quick 18-8 first quarter lead, then withstood several McDonald rallies to record its fifth win of the season.
McDonald took its first lead of the game with just over one minute remaining in the second quarter when a Josh Celli three-point play gave the Blue Devils a 32-31 advantage. A Rasile basket gave the Devils their largest lead of the game at 34-31, but a 14-point quarter by Kane-Johnson helped put the Red Dragons ahead at the half, 41-40.
McDonald would score the first basket of the second half on a Portolese layup to take its final lead of the night. However, Niles responded with a nine point run and never looked back.
“There were a few times when I thought that McDonald’s pressure was starting to get to us, but we always preach that adversity is going to happen and that’s why I didn’t call a timeout,” Foster said. “I wanted to see how this team reacted. I was nervous, there were a couple of times where we could have put them away with a rebound or some free throws, but we kept letting them hang around. But we did get things done at the end.”
Meanwhile, McDonald coach Jeff Rasile expressed frustration at the way his team has played through its first six games of the season.
“We aren’t a very good basketball team, and yet we’ve led in the second half of every game we’ve played so far,” Jeff Rasile said. “It’s the little things that we don’t do that is so frustrating. We don’t rebound, we don’t pass, we don’t catch.
“The biggest frustration is that we’re not getting a fair effort from every player on this team. If they don’t want to play, they shouldn’t play. We’ve never begged anyone to be a part of this team, and we’re not going to start begging now.”