Crusaders stage second half comeback to win D9 1A title
CLARION – The Elk County Catholic Crusaders trailed Union by as much as 12 points during the first half of Saturday's District 9 1A boys' championship game at Penn West Clarion, and even though they had ended the final 3:19 of the second quarter on an 8-2 run, ECC still trailed by six, 28-22, at the half.
Aside from making the opening bucket in the game, ECC did not hold the lead until the Crusaders went up 3533 with 1:09 remaining in the third quarter, but once they took control, they never trailed again. The Crusaders outscored Union 13-2 in the fourth quarter and 28-7 in the second half as they rallied to win the District 9 1A boys' title with a 50-35 victory.
“We beat a good team,” said ECC head coach Aaron Straub. “When you take a look at that team (Union) that beat the third seed and the second seed, we almost thought that maybe they were going to complete the run, especially the way they played early.”
Straub credited Union's coaches for doing a good job preparing their players for the matchup.
“They came out, they believed, and they didn't blink at all,” Straub said. “I'm really proud of the kids. It was a good win.”
Straub remarked following the game that his concern started after Union's first few shots as the Golden Knights quickly built a 12-point lead in the first quarter.
“We really had a poor defensive gameplan. The way we played their screens, they really exploited us,” Straub said.
Zander Laughlin was particularly effective for Union early in the game, scoring 10 of his 12 points in the first quarter and the remaining two in the second.
“Adam (Straub) was playing Laughlin, and Adam got caught up in helping with a high screen, and we just didn't prepare hard enough for him,” Straub said regarding one of Laughlin's early threes. “It was just little things like that early. And let's face it, they made a bunch of shots early and they looked really good. They're a good team.”
Straub added that one of the biggest differences in the game was the result of the decision to switch Adam Straub from Laughlin to Dawson Camper.
“Probably the biggest thing that will go unnoticed to the average fan tonight was when we switched Adam to Camper. Adam did a great job on boxing Camper out, and he did a great job on limiting his second chance points. If you want to point to one difference in the game, it was that difference that Adam did a great job containing him.”
Another chance the Crusaders made later in the game was how much time certain players were seeing on the court.
“I think if there is one thing that you can say about the team is we had a guy in Colby Nussbaum, who you could say was our best player this year. We felt, at some point in the second half, we needed to put a little different makeup on the floor, so we had a guy that maybe led us in minutes and led us in a lot of categories that maybe only played three of the last 12 minutes. I think that says a lot about our team, a lot about our team chemistry, and a lot about our team character,” Straub said.
Adam Straub and Wil Wortman led the Crusaders in scoring with 12 points each. Straub scored all of his points over the first three quarters, while Wortman did all of his scoring in the last three. Ten of Wortman's points came in the second half.
Jordan Wasko scored eight points for the Crusaders in his second game back since being sidelined due to an injury sustained during the team's regular season game in Brookville in February.
“You can't not be happy for Jordan,” Straub said. “It is amazing. When he left the Brookville floor, we were thinking not this year, and we were hoping (he'd be back for) next year. To see him moving as well (as he is), he's had a lot of treatments, he's had really good care, he's had a lot of prayers, that's for sure, and a lot of people believed in him. We're very fortunate to have him back. He never stopped believing that he was going to be back.”
Straub noted that the entire team stepped up in Wasko's absence to contribute to their run to the D9 1A title.
“It's not like we've had any lull in an easy part of the schedule or any lull in the intensity of the games. After that Brookville game, we had St. Marys. That's always an unbelievable game, especially for as talented as they were. Then we were at Bradford, and then against St. Marys again in the AML, against Ridgway on a neutral floor in the AML championship game, and then right into the districts with Smethport, and then getting Jordan back for a minute or two in our semifinal game against Cameron County,” Straub said. “It's not that we had a whole lot of time to think about it or dwell on it. We just had to get up and go. We had a lot of people step up.”
Union's Payton Johnston led all scorers with 15 points, and Laughlin was also in double figures with 12.
The Crusaders secured the ball on the opening tip and Michael Jacobs quickly took it to the hoop, scoring just seven seconds into the first quarter to give ECC an early 2-0 lead. However, Union would quickly take control. Laughlin hit his first three eight seconds later to put the Knights on the board. While a bucket by Adam Straub would briefly give the lead back to the Crusader, 4-3, with 7:03 still to play in the quarter, Union quickly began to pull away as an eightpoint run put the Golden Knights up 11-4.
The run started with a two by Laughlin that gave the Knights back the lead, and then Johnston scored five points on a three and two. Camper went one-fortwo from the foul line with 3:16 left in the quarter to end the run.
Following another bucket by Jacobs for the Crusaders, Union put seven more points on the board, with Laughlin scoring the first five on a two and a three and Johnston adding a field goal with 41 seconds remaining.
The run put the Knights up by 12, 18-6.
“They have size, and that's about as good of a shooting team as we've played. Fortunately, we were just able to keep enough contact to realize that we still had a chance, even when we were down 12,” Straub said.
A bucket by Straub with 13 seconds remaining saw the quarter end with Union ahead by 10, 18-8.
A pair of foul shots by Nussbaum brought Union's lead back into the single digits 26 seconds into the second quarter, but Johnston made a pair of foul shots of his own to put it back to 10 points, 2010.
Another bucket by Jacobs for the Crusaders was then answered with a pair by Johnston, once again giving the Knights a 12-point advantage as they led 24-12 with 5:02 remaining in the half.
Nussbaum and Laughlin traded twos, and then with 3:19 left in the half, the Crusaders started their comeback, outscoring Union 8-2 over the remainder of the frame.
A pair of foul shots by Lance O'Neill opened the run, and then Straub also made a pair of shots from the foul line. Wortman and Union's Skyler Roxbury traded twos, and then Straub made another pair of foul shots with 3.4 seconds remaining to send the game into halftime with Union's lead trimmed to six points, 28-22.
Union continued to put up a fight early in the third quarter, with Johnston scoring the opening bucket of the second half and then Roxbury and Camper putting Union's next three points on the board on a field goal and one-for-two showing from the foul line, respectively, following a Wortman bucket.
With 4:23 left in the third quarter, Union led by nine, 33-24. However, the Knights would only score two more points during the remainder of the game, and those would not come until Roxbury made a bucket with 5:22 left in the fourth.
In the meantime, the Crusaders closed out the third quarter with a 13-point run over the final 3:14 to retake the lead for good.
The run started with a three by Wasko, and then Straub made another bucket. Wortman was fouled making a field goal with 1:46 to go but could not come up with the foul shot for the three-point play. A pair of foul shots by Straub knotted the score at 33-all with 1:43 to go, and then the Crusaders retook the lead on a bucket by Jacobs with 1:09 remaining in the third. A pair of foul shots by Wortman with 10 seconds to go brought the quarter to a close with the Crusaders leading by four 37-33.
The Crusaders continued to pull away in the fourth, opening the quarter with a fivepoint run on another three by Wasko and a two by O'Neill to lead by nine, 42-33.
Roxbury scored Union's final points of the game with 5:22 to go, making the score 42-35.
ECC then closed out the game with an eightpoint run over the final 2:53 to secure the D9 1A boys' title with the 50-35 victory.
A pair of twos by Wortman opened the run, and then Wasko and David Anderson each went two-for-two from the foul line to set the final score.
Both teams advance to the 2023 PIAA 1A Boys' Basketball Championship and will host first round games on Friday at 7 p.m. As the District 9 1A champion, the Crusaders (25-2) will host District 7 fifth place team Neighborhood Academy (20-5), and the Knights (1412) will host District 5 third place team Turkeyfoot Valley (17-9).
Union 35 Skyler Roxbury 3-0-0-0-6, Trent Fleming 0-0-0-0-0, Dawson Camper 0-0-2-4-2, Owen Bish 0-0-0-0-0, Trey Fleming 0-0-0-0-0, Payton Johnston 5-1-22-15, Christian Salizzoni 0-0-0-0-0, Hayden Smith 0-0-0-0-0, Gage Jordan 0-0-0-0-0, Zander Laughlin 3-2-0-012. Totals 11-3-4-6-35.
Elk Catholic 50 Jordan Wasko 0-2-22-8, Frankie Smith 0-00-0-0, Noah Cherry 0-00-0-0, Bobby Urmann 0-0-0-0-0, Lance O'Neill 1-0-2-2-4, Timmy Brannock 0-0-0-1-0, Michael Jacobs 4-0-0-0-8, David Anderson 0-0-2-2-2, Wil Wortman 5-0-2-312, Colby Nussbaum 1-0-2-2-4, Charlie Geci 0-0-0-0-0, Adam Straub 3-0-6-7-12. Totals 14-216-19-50.
Score by quarters Union 18 10 5 2 35 ECCHS 8 14 15 13 50