The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Mentor shows depth in opening-round win
Cardinals put 11 in scorebook in D-I victory over North, face Harvey next
When playoffs start, you expect big-name players to step up. That is exactly what happened when Mentor took on North in a Division I sectional semifinal on Feb. 24.
Luke Chicone scored 17 points in the first four minutes of the game, and the Cardinals put 11 players in the scorebook as they cruised to a 94-41 win.
Mentor moves on to take on Harvey in a sectional final on Feb. 26.
After Chicone had an explosive first quarter, he took his foot off the gas when it came to scoring.
He scored six more points for the remainder of the game to finish with 23.
But while he wasn’t scoring, he was getting other players, including Antonio DiFranco and John Sierputkowski, involved in the scoring. Instead of running up his own personal score, Chicone kept the same mantra that the team has had all season, playing unselfishly.
“We’ve been saying all year that we are an unselfish team,” said Chicone.
“We only have seven more games left and we want to keep winning, while getting as many players involved in the scoring as possible. Anyone on this team is willing to put in the work to do what we need to do to win, and it showed tonight.”
Also finishing in double figures with Chicone were Jonah Waag (12) and Steven Key (10), like most games this season. But also turning in good performances were DiFranco, putting up 11 points, and Jake Ferritto and Kyle Culler putting up nine points a piece.
Depth like Mentor showed in this game is hard to come by, and coach Bob Krizancic knows how important that is considering they ended the regular season playing 11 games in two weeks.
“I love the depth that we have,” said Krizancic. “A lot of these athletes could play at other schools and start at other schools, but we try to get them as much playing time here. Tonight we wanted to play our starters 10 minutes or less to try and help them regroup after a very busy end to the regular season.”
While North’s season is now over, it is a season that they can look back on and see that they improved from where they were last season. The Rangers did snap their 31game losing streak when they defeated Wickliffe on Jan. 30, and they beat Grand Valley on Feb. 3.
While the final score might show that the game was a blowout, North started the game keeping pace with Mentor before Chicone took over the scoring. Coach Matt Vespa says that he is proud of how his team come out and played against the state’s No. 1-ranked team in the Associated Press Division I poll.
“While we’re not about moral victories, I couldn’t be more proud of my team,” said Vespa. “They faced adversity with playing two tough games after two weeks off, and had limited practice to get ready to play Mentor. Our goal was to come out and battle, and despite the final score, we showed that we are capable of playing with them.”
Leading the way for North was Kyle Randle with 10 points and Sean Register Jr. with eight.