STVM, CVCA finish seasons as district runners-up
The St. Vincent-St. Mary and Cuyahoga Valley Christian Academy boys basketball teams finished their seasons as district runners-up Saturday. Here is a recap on each team’s final game of the season:
GARFIELD HEIGHTS 57, ST. VINCENT-ST. MARY 45 Sophomore Marcus Johnson totaled 25 points, four rebounds, three assists and two steals to lead the Bulldogs past the Irish in the Division I, Northeast 6 district final at Lakewood High School.
Senior Jayson Walker paced STVM with 15 points. Sophomore DeCarlo Prince and junior John Whorton scored 12 points apiece.
“It was back and forth early in the game and then we let them get up with an 8-0 run midway through the first [quarter],” STVM coach Dru Joyce II said. “We came back and cut it to five. It was 15-10 at the end of the first quarter.
“The second quarter was pretty even — 17 for us and 19 for them — so we went into halftime down seven [34-27]. The third quarter, they scored eight and we scored seven. Early in the fourth quarter, we were down 10 and started trying to make a comeback. We cut it a couple of times down to seven. We could have had it to five. They broke our press and got the lead up to 12. That was pretty much it.
“All in all, though, this has been a tough year for St. Vincent-St. Mary basketball. It is not what we have been used to. I have a lot of respect for my kids and the effort that they put forth. We never quit. We just didn’t have enough to get it done. They shot the ball a little better than us. We were 4 for 14 from behind the 3-point line and they were 6 for 12. What hurt us is what hurt us all year — the turnovers. We had a bunch of unforced errors, and you just can’t win when you are turning the ball over. We had a total of 20 turnovers. They had 16 turnovers.”
Johnson’s father is Garfield Heights coach William “Sonny” Johnson, a former standout player at Garfield Heights, Cleveland State and Ohio University.
Garfield Heights’ other scoring leaders were junior DeVaughn Jackson (12 points), senior Deandre Jones (10 points, 10 rebounds) and senior Calvin “CJ” Little (six points, six assists).
“We believed that we had an opportunity, which we did, to keep the season rolling, but it didn’t happen,” Joyce said. “This was a tough year. It was maybe our last chance to get a championship game in Division I. Next year, I don’t know, but we could go all the way down to Division IV. They are considering the thing where you can choose to go up to Division I. I have to take a long look at that and see if that is what we want to do.
“It makes it tough when we have 300 boys and we are playing against schools who have 1,200 boys.”
Joyce is set to lose to senior starters Walker and Daniel Ajose and senior reserves Michael Walter and Nehemiah Hackworth to graduation.
Prince, Whorton and sophomore Rayshawn Hamilton are slated to be returning starters. Junior Noah Chambers is also scheduled to be back after playing the first half of the season and then sitting out the second half of the season per OHSAA transfer rules.
“We will be good,” Joyce said. “This was a tough year, but we played a lot of younger guys so there is a lot of growth there and we are going to be all right.”
CLEVELAND VILLA ANGELA-ST. JOSEPH 60, CVCA 58 Junior Antonio Brown made a layup with 12 seconds remaining to lift the Vikings (18-7) over the Royals (22-3) in a Division II, Northeast 3 district final at North High School in Akron.
CVCA had a layup and a floater in the final five seconds that did not go in the basket.
Junior Sean Shenker led VA-SJ with 15 points, senior Quandell Wright scored 14 points, Brown finished with 13 points and junior Jeremiah Martin added seven points.
CVCA’s leaders were junior Niles Nuru (14 points), senior Hayden Grant (13), sophomore Connor Gray (nine), sophomore Charley Levak (seven) and senior LaVelle Sharpe Jr. (six).
“We started off the game slow,” CVCA coach Matt Futch said. “I think our guys were getting adjusted to the moment. Shots didn’t go our way to begin the game. We were able to settle in in the first half and we were down six [30-24] going into halftime. We came back out and had a foul trouble situation with Niles Nuru, but Charley Levak was the guy who kept us going.
“We got a big contribution by senior Hayden Grant, who had a double-double tonight. I thought overall our guys were connected down the stretch, but just a couple of calls and a couple of missed assignments from our guys hurt us. That is how the game went.”
CVCA trimmed its deficit to 40-37 through three quarters.
“When it is a championship game like this, it comes down to the little things,” Futch said. “There were some little things that we missed out on as far as execution.”
Futch will bid farewell to seniors Grant, Sharpe and Ricky Levak. The Royals are set to return four players with starting experience — Nuru and sophomores Charley Levak, Joey Kopec and Brayden Harris.
“Hayden Grant and Ricky Levak were young men who made the freshmen team my first year,” said Futch, who completed his fourth season as CVCA’s coach. “We thought they would be a good fit for our program. They both worked and contributed in a big way to the success that we have had and are the foundation of the program that I have been trying to build at CVCA. LaVelle added to that [the past two seasons] with familiarity of what I would like to see. He helped with that. We lose those three guys to graduation.
“... Next year, there is a good group returning. Six of the 11 that we play were sophomores, so there will be good things to happen for them and Niles Nuru is a young man who constantly stays in the gym. He is coming by and asking me in the summer, ‘Can you get the keys so I can get shots up?’ He really changed his game. I am sure that he will be one of the leaders who will lead CVCA in that regard as it relates to basketball.”
— Compiled by Michael Beaven