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The start of the boys basketball season usually feels a little rushed as students transition from playing fall sports to hoops. Students and coaches essentially have one month to get ready for action. Throw in a game against your biggest rival several games into the season, and being ready to play on all cylinders can be quite a daunting task — especially to a young, inexperienced team.
The Cardinal boys found out the hard way in Burton on Saturday night just how difficult it is to compete at the varsity level against the Badgers.
From the get-go, Berkshire dominated its cross-town rivals for a 54-32 victory.
With the win, Berkshire improved to 2-1 overall and 1-0 in the CVC. Cardinal fell to 1-2 and 0-1 in league play.
The team with more experience and more returning lettermen came out and set the tone earlier for Berkshire’s Hall of Fame night.
Lead by senior Jake Sedivy and junior Jarrett Smetana, the Badgers came out and played defense right off the bat. With just under two and half minutes to play in the first quarter, Berkshire was on top by a 12-3 margin. Sedivy, in that time, scored four points and pulled down two rebounds. It was the defensive effort, though, that Berkshire second year head coach Keith Clapacs was eager to talk about after the game.
“We’re a younger group and there’s no way to fake confidence,” said Clapacs. “We have to go out there and make plays and settle into the ballgame. Our defense needs to get on the floor and get to those loose balls. Jake Sedivy, Jarrett Smetana and Aaron Pawlak off the bench with ability to take charges early was huge for us. We said we were going to play team defense and get some turnovers by getting out to spots and taking charges. I thought that was more important than turnovers.”
The tenacity of the Badger’s defense was evident from the start. The defense put pressure on Cardinal in all phases of the game: from bringing the ball up the court to the transition game to pressuring the Huskies into taking poor shots. In short, Berkshire simply took Cardinal out of their game plan and forced them to play the way the Badgers wanted them to play.
“Not to take anything away from them, because they came out and executed and did what they needed to do,” Cardinal coach John Cummins said. “We didn’t come out and do anything we were supposed to do in as far as our game plan.
“Offensively and defensively, it was not one of our better showings out there. It was very disheartening as far as what we were trying to accomplish. We didn’t execute anything we put into practice for a full week. It was like we had just came off of a back-to-back game, like we didn’t get to do any scouting or anything. It was just a real frustrating game.”
The Huskies feature just two seniors on their roster, with very little combined varsity time amongst all the players on their roster. Four of the eight juniors on the roster started this game.
Cardinal couldn’t find any rhythm or consistency, and by halftime the Badgers held a commanding 32-15 lead. Berkshire overcame its mistakes throughout the game; by the end of the third quarter, the Badgers put the game out of reach at 48-26.
Smetana and Sedivy were too much for the young pups from Cardinal.
Smetana led all players with 18 points. He also hauled in seven rebounds. The junior was simply too much on both ends of the floor for the young Huskies to handle.
“He’s got a lot of old man skills,” said Cummins about Smetana’s play. “He’s pretty crafty when he gets down low. I told my guys to stay in front of him and prevent easy opportunities. We lost him a bunch of times, and he took advantage of that and recognized when we had a smaller guy on him.”
Sedivy, who transferred to Berkshire from Newbury, added eight points and a game-high eight rebounds.
“It’s fun to see him get confident, to take the charges, box out,” Clapacs beamed. “I don’t think he embraced the dirty work up until about a week or two ago. Those are the things he wants to do now. It’s not just finishing a layup or sealing the post to get an inside touch, he wants to do the dirty work, and I’m glad to see him in that role.”
“He’s a really good player, comes to practice every day ready to work. He’s the first guy out on the court and he really loves this team,” added Smetana.
A large crowd filled the Badger’s Den as these two schools renewed a rivalry dominated by Berkshire until recent years. Emotions were put on display in the first half, as both sides racked up a high number of fouls. Cummins admitted it was hard to play such an emotional rivalry game this early in the year.
“It’s always tough for both teams,” he said. “I don’t have my rotation yet. I’m not sure who I’m going to start from game to game, or how many kids I’ll play in a game — eight, nine or 10. It’s tough. It’s unfortunate we have to play conference games right away. A lot of other sports you play non-conference games first before playing conference games. Berkshire has to play the same way. We were fortunate to come out as victors the last couple years. We just didn’t come out to play.”
Clapacs agreed, but the Badger coach was glad to come out with the victory.
“It’s come back to Cardinal the last few times. It was good to get the communities out on both sides. I’ve been around a lot of rivalries, but not one where it was this type of sense of community. It truly is a friendly rivalry. For us to bring it back to Burton, I know it means as much to the community as it does our kids and school.”
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