Troy Christian earns regional final match against ‘very special’ Russia
KETTERING — Ray Zawadzki entered Tuesday night’s Division IV region final with a personal 1-6 record in round of 16 games. But he knew he had a chance.
And he was right. His Troy Christian team started fast behind Parker Penrod and earned a 57-47 victory over Jackson Center. Now comes the hard part. The fourthranked Eagles play No. 2 Russia, another Shelby County staple in the regional tournament, in the final at 7 p.m. Friday.
Russia beat Troy Christian by eight points in the regional semis last year and by 25 points in December. Zawadzki’s wife asked him if he thought his team could beat Russia.
“I said, ‘You’ve seen the movie ‘Dumb and Dumber?’” he said. “They said you’ve got a one in a million shot. So I got a chance. It might not be a great one because I tell you what, they’re just a very special basketball team.”
Penrod, the Southwest District Division IV player of the year, scored 14 of his 22 points in the first half as the Eagles built a 17-11 lead after one quarter and a 30-23 halftime lead.
“Come out attacking, put them on their heels a little bit,” Penrod said “Lucas Heitkamp for their team is a great defender. He’s probably the toughest defender I’ve played all year. So we wanted to get a lot of ballscreen action and kind of get him off of me to attack the bigs and get them into foul trouble. We did just that.”
And the Eagles shot the ball well like they normally do. Penrod said it’s a product of all those early-morning summer shooting sessions in the gym and that everyone on the team shoots at least 50 threes in every practice.
“Coach Z has given us that trust,” Penrod said. “And we have that trust within our own team that even if you miss a shot, we know we’re going to get it back on defense. That’s our bread and butter.”
Making 4 of 8 3-pointers and 8 of 10 two-point shots were exactly what Zawadzki wanted in the first half. He didn’t want to leave anything to chance like they did in the regular-season meeting that the Eagles won despite taking only 25 shots.
“We felt the key was at the end of one we had to be winning 13-6, not trailing 13-6,” Zawadzki said. “Having a lead against Jackson Center was very important. Because if they were able to get into the their style of ball where they control the tempo, it was going to give us problems.”
First-year Jackson Center coach Aaron Klopfenstein felt the same way about the first quarter.
“We knew that their transition was something that they tried to make a point of emphasis,” he said. “That was something we wanted to combat, and we wanted to control the pace. But they’re a team that when they get the lead, they make it really difficult to do.”
Penrod got help from point guard Christian Brusman with 18 points and Alex Free with eight points. The Tigers held 6-foot-7 Frank Rupnik to four points, but with the guards combining for 40 points it didn’t matter. Rupnik’s big job was to control Jackson Center’s Evan Platfoot, who scored 10 points and got in foul trouble in the second half.
“They just make it tough because they’ve got so many weapons,” Klopfenstein said.
The Tigers trailed by 12 after three quarters but cut the Eagles’ lead to six early in the third on a another drive to the basket by Trever Huber, who scored a teamhigh 14 points. The Tigers cut the lead to six twice more but never closer.
“It’s never simple against a Shelby County League team,” Zawadzki said.
Now he hopes the program he took to state in 2013 can make it for the second time in school history.
“I believe in my kids,” he said. “I believe they’re going to give me 32 minutes on Friday night.”
A chance is all he wants.