The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Beavers bust logjam, rally for road victory
Snatching victory from the jaws of defeat. That hasn’t been the norm for Riverside this season, but the Beavers will take wins any way they can get them.
Trailing most of the way in a Western Reserve Conference tussle at South on Feb. 2, Riverside took the lead in the game’s final two minutes and held on to edge the Rebels, 70-66.
Down, 62-57, in the fourth quarter, Riverside sophomore Erren Conwell scored twice to cut it to 62-61.
With 1:45 remaining, Beavers senior Brett Fulton found himself with the ball in the key and looking around for someone to pass to. Finding no one open, he drove to the hoop himself, scored and was fouled.
Fulton sank the foul shot to give Riverside a 64-62 lead. Alvin Scales tied it for South, then Fulton put back a miss to put the Beavers back ahead, 66-64, with 1:12 to play.
After both teams came up empty on a couple possessions, Riverside senior Caden Geiger sank four free throws around a layup by South’s Tyree Talley with 19 seconds left.
After Geiger’s latter two tallies, South missed twice on its final possession, and Geiger grabbed the rebound of the second miss to seal the win.
Riverside improved to 10-4, and its previous nine wins had been by an average margin of 23.3 points.
Freshman Andrew Taggart led the way the Beavers, scoring 19 points with a trio of 3s in the third quarter. Geiger added 14 points, and Fulton and Conwell chipped in 11 points each.
“It felt great, being able to help my team win,” Taggart said. “I just felt like I couldn’t miss out there.”
For Riverside coach Matt Grendel, the ability to pull out a win in the final minutes shows how much his squad has grown.
“We were losing for most of that game, and I think it was a huge step in the right direction for our team to show maturity,” Grendel said. “When we were down eight at the end of the fourth quarter, and they didn’t give up, they didn’t quit. They kept working hard, and luckily we ended up getting on top.”
For its part, South didn’t look anything like a team that hadn’t played since Jan. 15. Will Hagwood scored 12 points in the opening frame, after which the Rebels held a 20-12 lead.
An 11-0 run capped by a Geiger and-one basket pushed Riverside ahead, 23-20, in the second quarter. The lead changed hands a couple more times before a rebound and putback by 6-foot-7 Brandon Lane gave South a 32-31 halftime lead.
Both teams employed various zone defenses to force their opponents to the perimeter. Taggart hit three big shots from outside to keep the Beavers within a few points of the Rebels, who carried a 51-48 lead into the final stanza.
“They ran a zone most of the game, and that made us uncomfortable,” Grendel said. “We weren’t able to attack, and we weren’t able to the ball out in transition because they were really doing a good job of crashing the offensive boards.
“Luckily our guys stepped up and started hitting outside shots against their zone. Andrew had a big game from the outside, and a couple other guys made big shots, and I was definitely proud of the way we made our free throws at the end.”
South (0-3) has been playing the waiting game of coronavirus delays throughout its season, and the three times it has gotten to play have each been tough losses against teams having strong seasons in which the Rebels had a shot to win.
“It was a tough one,” South coach Doug Barber said. “We had it, but we just made some mistakes that you can’t make in a close game. They took advantage.”
Hagwood led all scorers with 21 points, and Talley added 16 for the Rebels. South led by as much as 58-48 early in fourth quarter before the Beavers began to force turnovers and rally.
“There were a lot of good things,” Barber said. “We moved the ball, we competed, we had some success offensively when we ran our zone stuff against theirs.”