The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
Lorain wins a tuneup for the postseason
Rangers give Titans a test; teams will meet again in the playoffs
It may have not been pretty, but it was exactly what Lorain needed.
The visiting Titans led by 18 in the second quarter only to see North Ridgeville bounce back with a flurry. The Rangers got as close as four in the third quarter before Lorain (ranked ninth in the state AP poll) pulled away for 78-62 nonconference win Feb. 18.
“It was good for us because we haven’t been pushed in a while,” Lorain coach John Rositano said. “They pushed us a little bit. They made us do some things that we had to work on in a closer game. We got some things accomplished. Give them credit, they made some tough 3’s.
“I thought we weren’t sharp like we normally are. We still moved the ball and did the right things (but) we weren’t as crisp shooting the ball, passing or cutting. We took care of business.”
Forcing 14 turnovers in the first quarter allowed Lorain (18-2) to hold a 17-6 lead at the end of the first quarter. The lead ballooned to 27-9 after back-to-back 3’s by Devone
Grant (team-high 23 points). But once the Rangers got used to the press, they started to find success.
North Ridgeville kept working back and trailed by only 10, 31-21 at the half and made things very interesting in the third quarter.
Five points by M.J. Smith and a long 3 by Tommy Hronis (game-high 24 points, including seven 3s) pulled North Ridgeville to within 35-31 early in the third quarter before Daesean Brooks (15 points) answered.
After Hronis’ 3, Brooks capped his own personal 9-0 run with a 3 of his own and a driving layup. With Brooks and Hronis knowing each other and texting each other before the game, it turned into a friendly competition.
“My teammates tell me that I need to start scoring more,” Brooks said. “So I got into (the) mindset to get the ball and just score. I saw I had a mismatch. My teammates got me the ball and I scored.
“Before the game, I told him (Hronis) don’t try to outshoot me. After he hit one, I told him that I was going to come down and get one back.”
Hronis hit some 3s well beyond the arc. He hit three in the third and three in the fourth quarter, but Lorain’s depth and offensive firepower proved to be too much — even with senior standout Naz Bohannon not scoring until late in the fourth quarter.
“Naz is very smart,” Rositano said. “He knows down the road we are going to need all eight guys to contribute. He’s trying to get other guys confident to score the ball. He’s being a facilitator, which for us is a really good thing right now. When we need him to score, he’ll score.”
North Ridgeville coach Bryan Morgan has seen Hronis have hot-shooting nights before, but it was the first quarter that proved to be the difference.
“I told the guys you got Lorain to stop pressing and stall at the end of the game, which is something not a lot of teams have been able to do this year,” Morgan said. “It was a good game for us … I was proud of the effort we got from the guys.
“After the first quarter, we settled down and got some points off the press … (but) that first quarter really killed us.”
For the third year in a row, the two teams will square off in the postseason in two weeks.