Unbeaten Jerome bags school’s biggest win
As Westerville South and Dublin Jerome tipped off an Ohio Capital Conference Cardinal Division boys basketball game last night, any neutral observer would have given South a big edge based on the eyeball test.
In that regard, the Celtics had the Wildcats right where they wanted them.
“We’ve never had any love or publicity before, and we feed off that,” Jerome junior guard Mason Baich said. “Every night, we’ve got out there to prove people wrong and to put Jerome basketball on the map. Hustle and motivation can take a team a long way.”
Blending terrific ball-handing, precise passing, dead-eye three-point shooting and heady decision-making, Jerome won 72-60 in a meeting of undefeated state-ranked teams before a euphoric, overflow home crowd.
The mob scene afterward was new for 11-year-old Jerome (12-0, 6-0), which has won eight state championships in boys and girls golf, boys lacrosse and girls tennis, but has just winning season in boys basketball.
“This is one of the things we talked about when we took over this program,” secondyear coach Jamie Pearson said. “We want people to know who we are. I realize it takes some time for that to happen, but winning tonight is a huge, huge step for us.
“We may not pass the look test, but these kids just work their butts off. Our credo is we want to play harder than you, and true to form, the kids followed the game plan and we battled them right to the end.”
Executing brilliantly and taking advantage of cold shooting by South, the Celtics went on a 21-4 run spanning the middle of the second quarter to the middle of the third for a 39-24 lead.
South (11-1, 5-1), top-ranked in the Dispatch- coaches poll and No. 2 in Ohio, closed to 61-55 with 3:37 left, but Alex Cline answered with a threepointer. The Wildcats started to foul, and the Celtics put away for their biggest win ever.
Slashing fearlessly through the lane and hitting pull-up jumpers, Baich scored 31 points. The exclamation point was a dunk on a long inbounds pass for the Celtics’ final points.
“Mason doesn’t get the credit he deserves,” Pearson said. “What a gamer he is. When the game rises, so does Mason. He has such a motor. He’s a pillar stone of what we’re doing.”
Colton Irion had 13 points and Seve Stavroff 11 for Jerome, which made eight threepointers and went 22 of 29 at the free-throw line. Irion missed the final 9:30 after his head hit the floor after a spectacular dunk. It was a scary scene that could have unraveled a less stable team.
Stavroff, the team’s leading scorer at 18 points per game, fouled out.
“We’ve got some really good guards,” Pearson said. “Blake Bickett and Kyle Burrier did some really nice things. We wanted to work the ball and make South chase us so that we could get high-percentage shots.”
Five players scored between eight and 12 points for South, which didn’t take full advantage of its mismatches inside and seemed to fall in love with perimeter shots. The Wildcats also shot just 13 of 25 (52 percent) at the free-throw line. South typically smothers teams with full-court pressure, but Jerome’s strong ball-handlers made that ploy unfeasible.
“Coming out tonight, there was an energy here we’ve never felt before,” Baich said. “Our adrenaline was really pumping.”