DeSales out of sync against Zanesville in regional final
Monday, March 22, 2010By SETH SHANER
DeSales boys basketball coach Blair Albright made no excuse for his team's 51-45 loss to Zanesville in a Division II regional final contest Saturday, March 20, at Ohio University's Convocation Center.
But to have seen the game was to truly see the ball bouncing the wrong way for the Stallions (22-3).
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| SNP photo by Phillip King. DeSales senior Aaron Selmek (13) strains for a rebound during the Stallions' loss to Zanesville Saturday, March 20, in the regional final in Athens. |
"Any time you get into this level of play, both teams are outstanding," Albright said. "It just comes down to which team executes better on a given day.
"Both teams have plans and things they're trying to do. One team does it better and they move on. Quite frankly, the clear reality of it was today they just played better than we did."
Things didn't start so well for the Stallions, who fell behind 16-6 at the end of the first quarter.
DeSales charged back and took a 19-18 lead on a three-point play by Adam Griffin with 1:44 to play in the second quarter. Both teams traded baskets until Zanesville led 23-21 at the half.
A Griffin three-pointer with 4:41 to play in the third gave the Stallions their largest lead of the day, at three points, 41-38. And even when they fell behind by four points midway through the fourth, a Clinton James three and a pair of Griffin free throws put them back ahead 45-44 with 2:04 to play.
That's when, despite having rebounded from all the previous bad bounces, things began to go haywire.
Down 46-45, Griffin saw a pair of free throws rim out, and after forcing a ZHS turnover, a contested shot in the lane went off iron and bounced toward the sideline where a tie-up apparently ensued and the possession arrow pointed toward the Stallions.
But the "held ball" called by one referee was overruled by another who awarded possession to the Devils because the ball had gone out of bounds after being touched last by DeSales.
With 29 seconds remaining, Zanesville's Raheem Forman got free on the baseline and scored.
Zanesville's Cole Carpenter netted one of two free throws and Forman put a capper on things with a dunk with a second remaining.
"We could never quite get enough stops in a row to be successful," Albright lamented. "As much as we try to speed tempo up and play at a fast pace, when you get against a team like Zanesville, it's hard to play at a fast tempo.
"You're going to have to execute in the halfcourt and they just outexecuted us in the halfcourt."
The Devils' Tanner Gibson led all scorers with 22 points, while Allen Harris (13) and Forman (10) were also in double figures.
Griffin led the Stallions with 19 points. Aaron Selmek added nine and James scored seven.
OU recruit Nick Kellogg was held to four points after scoring 21 in the regional semifinal.
"We had to give great help and play team defense overall," Gibson said of the defensive job done against Kellogg. "He's a good player, so he's going to get in the lane and near the basket, but we had to help each other out."
DeSales' quintet of players on the floor at a given time just couldn't get in sync.
"It seemed, no matter whether we were on offense or defense, like we always had three or four out of the five guys doing what they were supposed to," Albright said.
"It wasn't the same guy every time, but somebody just wasn't quite doing their job or missed an assignment, and that adds up in a game like this."
It's the first trip to a final four for Zanesville since coach Scott Aronholt led a then-Division I squad there in 1997.
"It's unreal," Aronholt said. "People ask how special this would be. When I was young and dumb, you think this is going to happen to you all the time. We've had some great teams that haven't made it to this point.
"Now that I'm old, I know how difficult it is to get there. This is as good an opportunity as we've ever had, to be able to go and be one of the final four teams."