The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
Brookside ends tournament drought
Young breaks scoring record
The Brookside Cardinals continue to reach milestones.
One week after winning the program’s first conference title in 32 years, the Cardinals outdueled Keystone, 77-66, on Feb. 24 in a Division II sectional final to win their first postseason game in nine years.
THE SCORE BROOKSIDE 77, KEYSTONE 66
It was also Brookside’s first playoff win inside of its current gym, and the No. 12 seeded Cardinals advanced to the North Ridgeville district semis at 7 p.m. on March 1 to play No. 1 Lutheran West.
With the win, Brookside (15-8) defeated LC8 rival Keystone (11-12) in all three games in their series this season.
“It’s huge because that’s what we’ve talked about,” Brookside coach Larry Babics said. “It’s the fourth time in school history that we’re going to a district. Every
little barrier that we can knock down, every wall that we can knock down, tonight was huge. To do it against Keystone, one of your rivals and well-coached, it kind of makes it a little sweeter.”
Not only has the team been racking up milestones, so has Avery Young. The senior guard hit the 1,000-point mark in the regular season finale one week ago, and became the school’s all-time leading scorer Feb. 24. He started hot with eight points in the first three minutes, and passed Nick Jackman for the record in the process.
“Coach told me that I was only six points away going into this game, so I was really excited for this game,” Young said. “Of course winning and getting it. I was surprised when they announced it, but I was really happy that they did.”
Brookside took an early 11-4 lead when Young was feeling it. Keystone withstood the initial surge, but the Cardinals poured it on towards the end of the first quarter and beginning of the second. Tied 19-19, Brookside finished the first quarter on a 7-0 run, and a 28-5 run in total to go up 47-24 midway through the second.
Young had 14 points in the first quarter, but Nolan Waechter began torching the nets in the second. After only making one shot in the first, Waechter put up 14 points in the second quarter. This duo has been leading Brookside all year, and they combined for 41 of the team’s 52 points in the first half. The pace of play and transition offense that Brookside thrives on was putting a lot of pressure on the Keystone defense.
“Our transition defense was the worst it could be,” Keystone coach Jeff Holzhauer said. “We kept contesting rebounds, but that’s something that the kids can do all year and get away with it. You can’t get away with it tonight, we worked on drills to get back on defense. We can talk about our effort in second half, but our first half wasn’t good enough.”
Trailing, 52-32, at halftime, Keystone made some adjustments in the locker room. Playing an inverted triangle defense, Young was held scoreless and Waechter only made three free throws in the first half. Led by Konner Rodick, the Wildcats were clawing back into it.
Brookside only scored nine points in the third quarter, and its lead was cut to nine at one point on back-to-back 3-pointers from Parker Padin and Zach Shackelford. Waechter’s only second-half points came at a crucial time to boost the lead back up to 12 to end the quarter.
“When you play Keystone, you’re obviously going to fight and battle for 32 minutes,” Babics said.
Rodick was the biggest reason that Keystone wasn’t down big entering the second half, as he got to the free-throw line and scored 18 points in the first half. He only scored four in the third quarter, but made up for it by knocking down three triples in the fourth.