The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
Lorain overcomes slow start to beat Gilmour
Titans hold Gilmour to 28 points after first quarter
The one-hour bus ride didn’t help the fact that Gilmour Academy was out for a potential street-cred building win over a Lorain program that has been one of the better ones in the state over the past several seasons.
The Titanas ended up falling behind early before rallying the final three quarters to post a 58-47 win to improve to 4-0 on the season.
Gilmour came out on fire, as the Lancers jumped out to a 7-2 lead, thanks to a 3-pointer by Ryan Mueller and a driving layup by Brandon Rose.
Ben DeMell scored 11 points to lead Gilmour. But the 6-5 senior, who will play baseball at Penn State, was coming off a string of three games in which he’d averaged 26.3 points a game.
Senior guard Seth Wilson scored 15 points and collected five steals to lead Lorain and senior guard De’Vante Jackson added 14 points for the Titans.
“They took the floor like they were playing in the NBA Finals and we took the floor like we were playing a summer league game,” Lorain coach John Rositano said. “And to their credit they took it to us in the first quarter and that’s how you fall down by eight.”
Lorain started out ice cold in the first quarter connecting on 4-of-14 shots and fell behind 7-2 early and trailed 17-9 after the first eight minutes.
Prior to the game, Rositano said that his team would have to “speed them up” as in make Gilmour play faster on the offensive end and that’s exactly what happened in the second quarter. Lorain started forcing Gilmour into turnovers and converting them into points at the other.
A Wilson steal and jumper would tie the game at 18, before Jamir Billings drained a 3-pointer to give Lorain its first lead of the night at 21-20 and the Titans led 28-26 at the half.
Jackson made several key plays throughout the game. His euro-step layup helped put Lorain up 3329 midway through the third quarter and drilled a 3-pointer to put Lorain up 40-36.
In the fourth quarter, he assisted on two Aden Brown buckets that finished off long offensive sets by the Titans that allowed them to conserve energy.
“It was just a matter of getting our guys into the game mentally and once they got into it mentally, we started causing them problems and that’s how you hold them to 28 points over the final three quarters,” Rositano said.
Gilmour coach Dan Decrane said the team tried to change defensive sets, in attempt to keep them “off schedule” early in the game.
Mission accomplished. However, for the Lancers, finishing out the game turned out to be a totally different animal as Lorain turned up the defensive pressure.
“They got into us pretty good. And we started dribbling sideways, picking up our dribble, making quick passes without ball fakes and they started getting their hands on passes,” DeCrane said.
Aden Brown scored 12 points for Lorain. His two-hand dunk on a feed from Jackson gave Lorain a 7-point lead with just 1:52 left in the game.
“Brown is getting better ever day,” Rositano said of 6-5 senior, who has a little bit of Larry Nance Jr., in his game. “Every day he is getting more active and more engaged. We need that guy to be the third or fourth scorer,” Rositano said.
“We count on our pressure to pretty much take anyone away,” Rositano said of containing DeMell
Adisa Molton, a 5-10 sophomore guard, came off the bench and provided some fearless minutes for DeCrane, as he scored eight points in the first half. But it wasn’t enough.
Lorain faces a showdown highly touted St. Edward on Tuesday night at St. Edward.