GAME PHOTOS: http://smu.gs/19bO7Af
For three periods last Wednesday night, the NDCL Lions and West Geauga Wolverines battled toe-to-toe, as most heavyweights might be expected to.
Coming into the Division II sectional contest, neither had dominated many teams during the season, thus setting up their game as eighth and ninth seeds.
They did not play like middle of the road teams, but the Lions established what they wanted to establish in the fourth period to claim a solid 59-41 win.
Something the Wolverines learned after they played their hearts out, only to fall short, was that they were also losing their coach, John Cardiero, who has resigned.
With kids in the seventh, fourth, and third grades, Cardiero is hanging up his whistle after seven seasons at Newbury and nine more at West Geauga to get to know his family better. Had his players known in advance of his resignation, the emotion of it all might have set back their efforts in this neighborhood battle with the Lions.
And they didn’t leave anything in the locker room for this game, other than some made baskets in the fourth period.
With a 42-38 edge after three periods, NDCL stepped up the defensive pressure full court in the fourth quarter, and in holding the Wolverines to just a David Wolfhope 3-pointer in nine shots while forcing five turnovers, pressure from Brendan Leininger at the top of the press also forced bad passes that altered what the Wolverines tried to do.
In leading NDCL (6-17) with 13 points, seven rebounds, three blocked shots, and two steals, Leininger acknowledged the defensive pressure in the fourth period was key to the win.
“It’s been our emphasis all season to try to finish off teams in the fourth period,” the 6-5 junior forward said. “We want to finish off teams late in the game with pressure defense as much as we can. We executed what we wanted to do in limiting them getting good shots, and it worked out well.”
Lions coach Chris Poulos agreed.
“I thought that with Brendan on top of our full court press, we could keep them from getting the ball downcourt for good shots,” he said. “West Geauga is a much better team than their record shows, but we just wanted to be more physical all the way and especially at the end.”
With Aidan Mlachak and Mark Kostelac battling early foul problems, the Lions were forced to use Leininger more in the post area. Guards Aaron Hammer and Sage Cantini and Ryan McMahon provided help defense and big baskets to keep the teams close until the last period as well.
Hammer scored 11 points, including a trio of 3-pointers; McMahon added nine markers on a trio of treys; and Santini led his team with eight rebounds.
All those things kept West Geauga (3-19) from big scoring runs.
“Once we got the ball rolling late in the game,” Hammer said, “we got some good looks at the basket and finished well. The key was in drawing their big guys away from the hoop. When we hit those 3’s, they moved out more and we got inside and finished.”
“For some reason, we started hurrying ourselves more,” Cardiero said. “We didn’t want to play at their pace. Running our offense is our bread and butter, but things snowballed on us and we didn’t execute what we had done in the first three quarters.”
Cardiero has put his full emotions into working with his teams over the years, and his emotions came out with sincere tears after talking with his team after the game.
“Our record doesn’t speak for the effort these kids have put into our program over the years,” he said. “The results haven’t always been there in wins and losses, but I think they are finally seeing their hard work paying off and learning to trust themselves to get to the next level.”
The Wolverines went right at the Lions’ interior defense, topped by 6-11 post Mark Kostelac and 6-5 Leininger with full force with some success. The two big guys blocked five shots and altered others, but the Wolverines, paced by 15 points and eight boards from Chris Zannetti, plus nine points from Andrew O’Donnell, just didn’t have enough fire power left in the fourth period to keep up.
The Lions, seeded ninth, now travel to Perry on Friday night to take on the third-seed Pirates. They will need to hit close to 50 percent from the floor, as they did in this game, to keep on the victory trail.
GAME PHOTOS: http://smu.gs/19bO7Af