Kenston can’t hold the lead

One key thing Kenston boys basketball coach Matt Vespa wants his team to learn from its Feb. 23 loss is to hold the lead and finish the game out.

The Bombers held Saint Ignatius (12-6) in check,until the fourth quarter. Kenston (15-7) led, 3331, at the end of the third quarter, but the lead slipped away, and allowed the Wildcats to come back and win, 49-40.

”I think we ran out of gas and we all know Ignatius is not going to stop coming at you,” said Vespa. ”I think we waited to just make that one or two plays to pull away but they just didn’t let us. They made plays at the end and there’s your ballgame.”

Those plays were from Chase Toppin, who laid one in to make it 38-35 in favor of the Wildcats. Luke Wiskes, who was one of the key players to step up at the end for St. Ignatius, extended the lead to 42-36 with a basket at the 2:36 mark in the fourth.

St. Ignatius was led by Toppin, who finished with 12 points. Michael Spear had nine points.

After a Wildcat 3, Ryan Long connected on a 3-pointer of his own to cut the deficit to 42-39. St. Ignatius stayed aggressive, attacked the basket and drew fouls to walk away with a win.

St. Ignatius Coach Brian Becker was pleased with the defensive efforts from his team, but not so much on the offensive end.

”I thought the defense we played with was pretty good tonight,” said Becker. ”Playing against a team who averages around 70 points a game and to hold them to 40 is pretty good. On the flip side, tonight was probably the poorest offensive outputs we had all season long. We had good looks, baskets opportunities but the ball just didn’t go in.”

Ignatius had a 9-8 lead after the first period. Kenston led at halftime 2015 thanks to a half-court shot by Ryan Kooser at the buzzer.

Kee-Shaun Merrill pushed the lead to 17-15 on his triple with less than a minute to go in first half.

”This was a tournament environment tonight,” said Vespa. “We will learn from this and the defense did a nice job holding them to 49 points but we didn’t make enough plays on offense. I think the moment got pretty big for us in the fourth quarter and this a great learning experience for us and that’s why we play these kind of schools. If we get in this kind of situations in the tournament, hopefully, we learn from it.”

For Kenston, Kooser finished with 12 points. Merrill had nine points.

The Bombers play University Feb. 28 in a sectional semifinal.