Riverside falls in district semifinal

The Riverside girls basketball team’s magic carpet ride came to an end in Massillon on Feb. 21.

Stymied all night by tough defense by Walsh Jesuit, the Beavers fell to the Warriors, 50-40, in the first of two Division I district semifinals at Massillon Perry. The lossz ends Riverside’s season at 20-4, while Walsh Jesuit moves on to play the winner of Akron Ellet and Canton McKinley.

“It’s a tough one,” Coach Brian Fulton said. “For three quarters we were right with them. Then in the fourth quarter, they got hot and hit a couple of buckets. We fought back and didn’t give up, but in the last four or five minutes, they pulled away.”

When Sam Volpe hit a spinner in the lane, Riverside had trimmed Walsh’s lead to 34-33 with 7:12 left in the game. But Cecily

Sutton hit a bank shot and a spinner of her own to stretch the lead back out to 38-33.

Riverside junior Savanah Laurenty split two free throws to make it 38-34, but a 6-0 run by Walsh pretty much put the game out of reach. Kara Courtad scored on a drive, Megan Taraba split two free throws and Taylor Angielski drained a 3 from the corner to make it 44-34 with 4:30 left.

Riverside never got closer the rest of the way.

“We did a good job of finding open shots and taking them,” said Walsh coach Chris Esterak of his team’s fourth-quarter run. “Cesily is a creator for us. She did a nice job of not forcing things and just finding her shot in the flow. She hit some big shots for us.”

Conversely, big shots were hard to come by for

Riverside. A Volpe putback made it 15-13 in the first quarter and her pass to Bozic for a triple at the end of the second quarter cut Walsh’s lead to 21-19 at the break

But Riverside never got the big run it counted on all year when it won 20 of 21 games after an 0-2 start. The Beavers led, 25-23, midway through the third on Sarah Fulton’s free throw, but that was their last lead of the game.

Sutton hit a 3 to end the third quarter and Kara Courtad hit one to start the fourth — and from there, Riverside was playing catch-up.

“We just couldn’t get our shot rolling at all,” Volpe said. “Normally we make a few and we’re good. We just couldn’t that going.”

That was by design, Esterak said.

“I told them they had their big three,” the Warriors’ coach said of Riverside’s three double-digit scorers — Volpe, Laurenty and Bozic. “Our goal is… you’re not going to stop them all, but slow down a couple of them. We can’t have all three. We did a great job of doing that.”

Bozic (16), Laurenty (14) and Volpe (6) led the Beavers, while Sutton’s 18 and Angielski’s 15 paced Walsh.

As Riverside’s contingent exited the locker room, many did so with tearsoaked eyes. Fulton credited his team’s four seniors — Volpe, Bozic, Eleanore Busch and Sofia Valvoda — for the leadership that led to the program’s first league title since 2005 and first sectional crown since 2006.

The bar has been raised for the program.

“They’ve got to rank as the top in Riverside history,” Fulton said. “If not the top, they’ve got to be right up there. This class right here — the leadership, the friendships — thee four seniors, I can’t say enough about them. They’re going to be missed tremendously next year.”