The Cardinal Huskies and Newbury Black Knights came into their season-ending rivalry game on Feb. 22 in almost identical situations. Both have grown and overcome obstacles this season on the hardwoods to reach the break-even point in the won-loss column.
The Huskies have played against tougher competition overall, but when the teams go at it head-to-head in their neighborhood rivalry along Route 87, anything could happen.
Cardinal (11-11) held the edge in this matchup, and after a tenacious first half where both teams played helter-skelter basketball, the Huskies overcame a one-point Newbury lead at halftime in a hard-fought 66-53 victory.
“We’ve had issues all season at times with our pace on the floor and staying focused on the task at hand,” Cardinal coach Jon Cummins said. “We felt all along that we had a lot of talent and promise on this team, but we also haven’t let it show. It was like that again in this game, but we did better in the second half, and since our goal is to win each game we play, tonight is another good game for us.”
The Huskies opened a 10-6 lead over the first five minutes of the game, paced by a trio of baskets and seven rebounds, of which four came on the offensive end, by senior forward Robbie Muhl.
After Newbury’s John Tropf drained a long 3-pointer to cut the lead to one point with 3:03 left in that opening period, the Black Knights closed out the quarter on a 10-2 run of their own for a 16-12 lead.
Both teams were at the 33 percent mark for that first half, but the telling stat showed its face as Cardinal had a 25-14 rebounding edg.
As the bigger Huskies wore down the Black Knights in the second half, outscoring them 34-20, Newbury just didn’t have enough energy left to finish strong.
“Tonight is just another example of what our biggest issues have been this year,” said Dan Jones, Newbury coach. “We’ve made some huge gains in how we play the game now, but we are still often outmanned, so if things aren’t working well, we just can’t climb back up the hill to win.
He continued: “Still, we’ve had a good season and we know we’re coming along well. One thing they did well tonight against us was in breaking the pressure defense.”
Mario Puletti had a solid night for Newbury with 21 points. Noah Parsons battled fouls much of the night but still went against the big boys of the Huskies to tally 10 points, and Tino Johnson added 10 points and five rebounds coming off of the bench.
Owen Mansfield slowed down the inside dominance for Cardinal by snaring 10 rebounds and blocking a trio of shots, but the overall depth for Cardinal, paced by a solid senior class, simply wore down the hosts.
Matt Carney and Muhl each tallied 18 points for the Huskies, and Robbie Bruncak added 11. Muhl ended the night with 14 caroms, and Hayden Cummins grabbed 10 stray shots as the Huskies won the battle, 42-30.
“I thought we had an on and off night rebounding tonight,” Muhl said. “It’s been like that all season for us. It all depends on who’s out on the floor, and a key thing for us is to make sure we aren’t standing around out there. We have several guys who can also score, so we try to get the hot guy going if we can. I had some success early tonight, and other guys picked it up after Newbury made some adjustments against us.”
Luke Timas, who tallied six points to go with six boards and six assists, agreed about hard work being part of the team fabric.
“If we can stay together and focus on what we have to do, we can be a good team,” he said. “We really had to pick it up after we lost the other day to Southeast, a 2-17 team we should have destroyed. They worked hard, we didn’t like we know we can, and we lost. It’s just a matter of us playing to our strengths and being more focused. I try to make good passes, but if the guys aren’t making shots, it doesn’t matter. Tonight, we did better in the second half to win.”
Newbury’s season ended on Feb. 27 with a 56-50 road loss to Maplewood. And the Huskies beat Bloomfield 69-68 in its first home tournament game. Cardinal played Garfield March 2 in Garrettsville next.