The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
VASJ tops Lake in potential playoff preview
Teams are expected to be 1, 2 seeds in district
Fans that filed out of Lake Catholic’s gym on Feb. 10 after the highly-anticipated matchup between the Cougars and visiting Villa Angela-St. Joseph had to leave sharing the same sentiment: ‘More of that, please.’
Those fans may very well get their wish. The Vikings, behind another great night by senior Jerry Higgins and stout defense, won a thriller in front of a capacity crowd in what could be the first round between the teams, 66-61. The two teams are expected to be seeded No. 1 and No. 2 at the Division II Lakeside District when seeds are released on Feb. 11. If both hold serve and advance through the tournament, their next meeting will be in exactly one month — the district final at Lakeside High School on March 10.
After Higgins dominated the second quarter with three steals and 13 points to break open a first-quarter tie and give VASJ (11-7) a 34-28 halftime lead, the Vikings built leads as high as 13 points in the third quarter and 11 in the fourth.
Lake Catholic (14-5) made a late adjustment that allowed it to mount a comeback and slice its deficit to 60-57 with 1:52 left in the game.
Higgins and Jaden Hameed (11 points) each made two free throws around an inside bucket by the Cougars’ Luka Eller to make it 64-59 with 48 seconds remaining. Eller then found Sean Fitzgerald cutting to the basket, and the junior laid it in and drew a foul. Fitzgerald missed the andone attempt, but the 6-foot-7 Eller grabbed the rebound with 13 seconds left and the Cougars down by three.
Coming out of a time out, Eller tried a three from the corner, but missed the mark, and the Vikings’ Khalil Mitcham grabbed the rebound and passed to Higgins, who was fouled with three seconds to play and sank two from the line for the final margin.
“I think the key was our defense,” Higgins said. “We really got after them and pressured them. Some of the shots we usually hit, we didn’t tonight, but we really locked in on defense and tried to get stops, especially in the first half.”
Higgins led all scorers with 29 points. He converted 9 of 12 from the line, and showed a fine shooting touch on shots in the key and from the outside. In addition to setting up his teammates for scores, he played solid defense on Lake Catholic’s sophomore standout Luke Frazier. Frazier finished with 14 points, but did so on 5 of 16 shooting from the field.
“The first thing to say is that without Mike Moran, there is no St. Joe’s basketball,” VASJ coach Babe Kwasniak said in reference to Lake Catholic coach Matt Moran’s father, the legendary St. Joseph and John Carroll coach that was standing nearby, underscoring the deep connections that run between the schools. “I grew up with Matt and love him like a brother. I’d rather win in a month than today. We haven’t really had a win to hang our hat on, and I think that was it.”
The VASJ interior defense, led by 6-foot-8 junior Latrace Jackson and 6-foot-6 junior Mitcham, did a fine job containing Eller and forcing the Cougars to operate from the perimeter. Eller managed 15 points, but seven of those came from the foul line.
Out on the perimeter, Higgins and Hameed did their best to frustrate the Cougars’ shooters. Lake Catholic shot 35 percent
from the field overall (21 of 60), and 32 percent from three-point range (9 of 28), while the Vikings grabbed six steals.
“I thought Khalil and Latrace did a great job, and Jay (junior Jason Priah) I thought. especially on the last play, did a great job,” Kwasniak said regarding his team’s strong defensive effort. “That was a great call by (Moran), he set a screen for the big guy (Eller), and Jason altered the shot enough to make him miss. We’re still so inexperienced so (tonight) was exactly what we need. This was better for us than a 10- or 15-point win or a 10or 15-point loss.”
“We used to save Gene (Higgins) for offense and put someone else on the best player, but he’s as good a defender as there is in the state,” Kwasniak said. “He doesn’t get tired, he’s not allowed to get tired. He got a couple steals early on against Frazier, and he probably doesn’t have the ball taken away from him a lot.”
Brandon Horton finished with 12 points for Lake Catholic, all on 3s, three of which came during the fourth-quarter rally. Fitzgerald added 10 for the Cougars, who gained some valuable experience of their own in facing a team that’s an annual state title contender.
“We learned that we’re going to have to do a better job stopping Gene Higgins,” Moran said. “What a tremendous player he is. He’s a leader, he’s unselfish, he does it on both ends of the floor. He made some great plays, and hopefully we can learn from that. They did a tremendous job defensively, they pressured our wings, we had trouble getting our offense going.”
Despite his squad’s difficulties in stopping Higgins, Moran was pleased with what the fourth quarter revealed.
“They weren’t guarding (Jack) LeJeune, so we made an adjustment that I thought worked in the fourth quarter,” Moran said. “We had him setting ball screens, and I thought that helped us create offense and brought us back into the game, with Horton hitting some big shots for us. It was a positive for us to be able to give our guys an adjustment and for them to execute it. They’re a great team, and we battled with them. It was a fun atmosphere, I wish I was a spectator just watching the game, because it was fun to watch. Hopefully we’ll have an opportunity to play them again in the tournament.”