Mayfield off to 4-0 start

Mayfield’s basketball program needed a fresh start.

The Wildcats finished an arduous 2016-17 season with a 2-21 record and were second-to-last in the Western Reserve Conference standings.

After four games under new coach Bob Pacsi, Mayfield has already doubled its overall win tally from last year. The Wildcats moved to 4-0 with a 52-40 victory against Madison on Dec. 12. Their 2-0 league record also already equals last year’s number of wins in WRC play.

“I think we’ve done something different in each game to allow us to win,” Pacsi said. “That’s the nice thing about where we’re at right now.”

Mayfield has blended a number of players with varying degrees of varsity experience to find success early this season. Three different players have led the Wildcats in scoring in their four games, and Mayfield has limited opponents to 49.8 points per game.

Mayfield opened its season with a 58-46 win against Nordonia on Dec. 1, defeated Bedford, 6151, on Dec. 6 and opened WRC play with a 69-62 victory against North on Dec. 8. Pacsi is a defensive-minded coach, a focus that’s manifested in the Wildcats’ early winning streak.

“We’ve worked pretty hard on the defensive end,” Pacsi said. “We have some excellent shooters, so to go along with that, we want to play the other end and not rely on our offense, per se, to win a game for us.”

Offensively, Pacsi’s been pleased by his team’s ball movement and scoring distribution. Michael Favazzo led Mayfield in scoring with 17 points against Nordonia and 20 against North, Donny Castellarin scored 15 in the win over Bedford, and Julius Vann scored a team-high 14 in his first start of the season against Madison.

Senior center Aaron Hicks leads four players averaging double-digit scoring with 14.3 points per game. After his breakout freshman year, Favazzo is second on the team with 12.3 points per game, Vann averages 11.8 and Castellarin scores 10.3 points per game.

“The nice thing about where we’re at is we’re not relying on any one person to be a go-to guy,” Pacsi said. “We’re doing a good job of moving the ball around, taking what’s given to us from the defensive end and we’ve been coming through so far.”

Mayfield’s toughest game of the season to date awaits Dec. 15 against South. The Rebels have won two straight over Riverside and Chardon after they dropped their opener at Lake Catholic last week.

Guard Norm Hughes averages 18.7 points per game to lead a long, athletic South team that will test the Wildcats with its 3-point shooting.

“We need to break down on their shooters,” Pacsi said. “We need to tag them, we need to identify them and we need to stay with them. We’ve done that so far but this is another team, so another challenge.”

Charitable Skipper

Corey Paugh averaged almost 13 points per game and made 56 total 3-pointers as a junior for Fairport last season.

Before his senior season, the Skippers’ sharpshooting guard wanted to put his talents to use for a cause.

Paugh teamed with Big Brothers Big Sisters of Northeast Ohio to raise money with donations from local businesses and members of the Fairport community.

“I kind of just wanted to give to a program to help them out,” Paugh said, “get the name out and stuff. Me and my parents were talking about it — it sounded like a good idea.”

Before the winter season began, Paugh secured donations of $1 or $2 for each 3-pointer made.

Paugh said his goal is to raise $1,000, and he hopes to make between 50 and 60 3-pointers once again this season.

“I’ve been working on my overall game,” Paugh said. “I’m trying to get high numbers up there, but focus on everything also.”

Paugh said he previously had not worked with any charities or community service organizations, which was part of his motivation to work with Big Brothers Big Sisters.

“We just kind of found a nice organization to help out,” Paugh said. “They were willing to cooperate with us and get their name out. I found out it was a good way to get it out.”