The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
RH hits HR in regional semi
CANTON » You’d be hard-pressed to find any members of the Richmond Heights boys basketball team who remember their program’s back-to-back heartbreaking losses in the Division IV regional tournament in Canton.
That’s OK. The Spartans are more focused on making history than remembering it.
Propelled by a ferocious defensive effort that fueled a 13-0 run at the end of the second quarter, Richmond Heights annihilated Bristol, 66-34, in the first of two regional semifinals at Canton Memorial Field House on March 12.
The win puts Richmond Heights (22-4) in a regional final March 15 against New Middletown Springfield.
Richmond Heights forced 27 turnovers, blocked 11 shots and — in short — made life miserable with its defense for a smaller Bristol team.
The Spartans smothered the Panthers in the fullcourt and halfcourt games. It wasn’t until the fourth quarter the Panthers had more points than turnovers.
Now they’re one game away from a state-tournament berth that evaded them in 2011 and 2012 when they lost on buzzerbeating shots to McDonald (2011) and Berlin Hiland (2012).
“Hopefully,” Richmond Heights coach Quentin Rogers said when asked if this is the year to get to Columbus.
“We’ve got to stay focused and play quarter by quarter.”
Scary thing is, Richmond Heights didn’t really do that against Bristol.
The Spartans turned the ball over 11 times in the first half and found themselves in a 16-13 dogfight at the 4:55 mark of the second quarter.
But once Richmond Heights hit its stride, Bristol got steamrolled like an innocent bystander.
A 13-0 run, ending with a 3-pointer and a stealand-bucket by Carter, opened a 29-13 lead. And while Bristol stemmed the tide briefly on a bucket by Gage Elza, Isaiah Martin buried a 3 at the buzzer for a 32-15 halftime lead.
If that didn’t end Bristol’s hopes, then a 10-0 run to start the third quarter did the trick. Jamarr Talbert hit a 3, Jevontae Jones made a bucket, Gbolahan Adio drained a 3 and then Talbert had a putback.
A game that was once a 16-13 nailbiter was now a 42-15 blowout.
“We said if we were going to turn it over, it had to be out of bounds so it’s a dead ball,” Bristol coach Craig Giesy said. “In the third, they just turned it on and put it out of reach on us.”
Richmond Heights’ defense caused turnovers, opened transition baskets and provided some highlight-reel dunks. Some of the blocked shots they accumulated were flatfooted.
Bristol’s leading scorer, Gage Elza, the all-time leading scorer in Bristol history, was held to nine points.
Matt Church had 10 points and six rebounds.
“Our defense is good, but it can be way better,” Talbert said.
“We did a good job on a lot of previous scorers, but we can do a lot better on defense.”
Richmond Heights got 15 from Jones, 12 from Anthony Maxie Jr. and 11 from Talbert.
Eight different Spartans scored.
The game finished up with both teams having cleared their benches with reserves in the game.
Giesy shrugged his shoulders on what it would take to keep Richmond Heights out of Columbus next weekend.
“What’s it gonna take (to beat them?)” Giesy pondered.
“A solid team. Keep ‘em off the glass. Keep them out of transition so they don’t have easy baskets... and hope they have a bad shooting night.”
March 12 wasn’t that night.
And now Richmond Heights is 32 minutes away from history that evaded them in 2011 and 2012.