The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Eagles advance to face Lake Catholic
There is wisdom in the basketball maxim about how tough it can be for one team to beat another three times in the same season.
The No. 6 seed Geneva Eagles proved that March 1 with a 45-40 victory over host and No. 3 seed Harvey in a Division II sectional final.
Harvey got the better of the Eagles twice during the regular season by a combined 32 points.
But in the game that mattered the most, senior forward Nick Stoltz and the Eagles made all the big The Eagles play Lake Catholic on March 7.
plays down the stretch in the fourth quarter.
Stoltz finished with a team-high 14 points as Geneva advanced to face Lake Catholic on March 7 in the district semifinals as Ashtabula Lakeside.
It was a 3-pointer by Stoltz midway through the fourth quarter that put Geneva ahead, 41-39. The Eagles never again trailed as they upped their record to 15-8.
“We’re not tall and we don’t have crazy talented players, but we have heart and energy,” Stoltz said. “It feels great to come in here and beat these guys on this floor. We’re rivals but we all know each other and grew up playing against each other.”
Geneva got 12 points apiece from senior guard Grant Mihalick and junior forward Brandon Smith.
“When you play a team as talented as Harvey, you don’t stay with them if you don’t give a 100 percent effort. We did that tonight,” Geneva Coach Eric Bowser said.
Junior guard Bishop Thomas netted a gamehigh 18 points for Harvey before fouling out in the closing seconds. Freshman guard Roderick Coffee III added 14 points as the Raiders bowed out at 15-8.
“Give all the credit to Geneva,” Harvey coach Davbe Wojciechowski said. “They out-played us and were very physical. We could pick apart a lot of things about the way we played. We had way too many empty possessions.”
Geneva had a 13-9 lead after one quarter, Harvey rallied to lead at halftime, 23-21.
From a 33-33 tie after three quarters, the Red Raiders took a 39-35 lead early in the fourth quarter. Geneva responded with an 8-0 run that included Stolz’s big-time trey.