The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
CARDINALS GO COLD
Mentor loses to Centerville, 63-49, ending run toward state championship
Mentor’s Jonah Waag (15) and Steven Key embrace after the Cardinals’ 63-49 loss to Centerville on March 20 during a Division I boys basketball state semifinal in Dayton.
DAYTON >> Defense wins championships. If you’re a sports fan or an athlete, that saying has been drilled in your head more times than you can count.
But time and again, you see examples of that phrase being true.
Another example of defense leading a team to a major win happened when Centerville defeated formerly undefeated Mentor, 63-49, in a Division I state semifinal March 20.
The win moves the Elks to their first state championship game in school history.
A major part of Mentor’s game all season was its ability to drive the ball to the rim and get layups. But Centerville was able to neutralize this aspect of the Cardinals’ game, and it was thanks to their length. The Elks start two players that are 6-foot-7, and the tallest starter for Mentor was Andrew Smith, who is 6-5.
While the height differential isn’t anything new for the Cardinals, the length of the Elks presented an issue of controlling the tempo. The defensive pressure forced Mentor out of its tempo game and into the type of game Centerville likes to run. Coach Bob Krizancic mentioned the defense Centerville was running forced the Cardinals out of their game.
“We’ve had problems shooting this year, but we’ve been able to control the tempo of the game,” Krizancic said. “There’s a stat in the college game that tracks possessions in a game. Most teams at that level average about 60 possessions a game. We averaged around 90 at the high school level. When we were able to run, we were able to neutralize the bigs with the press. But when trying to penetrate, they were by the rim, and that made a challenge.”
In order to see how the Elks’ defense shut Mentor’s drive to the hoop down, Luke Chicone, who averaged 23.1 points per game, finished with nine points on 3-for-14 shooting, including 0-for-8 from beyond the arc. And it wasn’t just Chicone that struggled on the floor. Jonah Waag finished 3-for-7 from the floor and only got to the foul line once the entire game. Teams have been able to take away Mentor’s ability to drive earlier in the season, but the Cardinals were able to adapt and make the adjustments needed to win games. As Steven Key noted, they just weren’t able to execute on offense.
“I think that was good enough to change the style of basketball that we want to play,” Key said.
“We’ve played in these games where teams want to slow it down and took things away from us. But we’ve found ways to compensate for what they took away, but tonight we just didn’t execute what we needed to do.”
While Mentor knew it had other things it was talented and able to do on offense, Centerville knew that as well. But as Coach Brook Cupps put it, Centerville was going to take away at least one aspect of the Cardinals’ game. He wasn’t sure how it would go, but his players were able to execute the defensive game plan that they wanted to run.
“We had to take away something,” Cupps said. “They can shoot, drive and they average 22 free throws a game. If you let them do all those things you’re losing, so you have to pick what your going to take away. We decided that we were going to try and guard them without fouling, keep them out of the lane, and make them hit contested 3s. I wasn’t sure if we could do that or not, but our guys did a really good job of doing that tonight.”