BOB ETTINGER
KIRTLAND — If there was a formula for beating the Edgewood boys basketball team, Harvey found it Saturday night.
The Red Raiders hit the defensive glass hard, pressured the Warrior guards, kept the ball out of the paint and closed out on the shooters in downing the Warriors, 47-35, in a Division II sectional championship at Lakeland Community College.
The fourth-seeded Red Raiders (13-9) will take on fifth-seeded East Tech (10-10) in a district semifinal Wednesday at 8 p.m. Third-seeded Lake Catholic will face top-seeded Collinwood in the first semifinal at 6 p.m.
“That’s the eighth year in a row we’ve made the district tournament,” Harvey coach Tim Starkey said. “I emphasize that because this team was 3-6. We had to re-evaluate our goals. We wanted to be over .500 in the (Chagrin Valley Conference Chagrin Division) in the second half. We did it. We wanted to sweep Riverside and we did it. We wanted to finish (the season) over .500 and we did it.
“We wanted to get back to the district tournament and we did it. For them to regroup... I’m tremendously proud. It could’ve gone either way at that point, but they dug in.”
The season has reached its conclusion for the Warriors (12-10).
Harvey beat the Warriors on the defensive glass on a night the Edgewood shooters were having a bit of trouble.
“We couldn’t have had too many offensive rebounds,” Edgewood coach Kevin Andrejack said. “I thought that really hurt us. We had an inability to get offensive rebounds and those are usually open against the 2-3 zone. (Harvey) did a great job.”
“We knew (Edgewood senior post Sean Butler) would be tough on the boards,” Starkey said. “Our weak-side guys were looking to come in, instead of trying to get out on a fast break. (Edgewood) definitely had the size. Definitely, rebounding was a team effort.”
It didn’t help that the Edgewood shooters didn’t have their best night.
“We thought they had two main scorers,” Starkey said. “We tried to stay soft on the other guys and help out (on Butler and junior point guard Marcus Harmon).”
The Warriors were just 15 of 42 (35.7 percent) from the field.
“It’s not that we don’t have good shooters,” Andrejack said. “Give (Harvey) credit. They knew the kids to sprint at and they sprinted at them. It’s not that we have bad shooters. (Harvey) did a nice job recognizing who the shooters were and closing out on them.”
Pressure on the ball also played a part in the Red Raiders being able to hold the Warriors for long stretches without scoring.
“You can’t just sit back and let them attack with Butler,” Starkey said. “He’s so big inside, we thought we’d play to our advantage. We think we have a lot of depth at the guard spots. The guys were nice and sound on their defensive fundamentals.”
Turnovers hurt Edgewood, but not in the usual sense — the Warriors turned it over 21 times to the Red Raiders’ 18. But Harvey made the Warriors pay for turning the ball over, whereas they couldn’t take advantage of the Harvey miscues.
“We have this conversation a lot,” Andrejack said. “I think there are good turnovers and turnovers. (Harvey’s) turnovers created dead-ball situations. Ours led to transition a lot of times.”
“Edgewood has been playing that 3-2 zone forever,” Starkey said. “They’re the best I’ve ever seen at it. We didn’t want to face that every time down the floor, so we needed to create turnovers. We had to get as many easy baskets as we could We did not like attacking the 3-2 zone. That is no fun.”
The Red Raiders were very balanced offensively. Randall Douglas led the way with 12 points, Mike Turman scored 11, Richard Barnes scored nine, Adrian Wooten had eight and Jim Lyons added seven.
Butler led the Warriors with 13 points, Chris McMellen totaled 10 and Derrick Coy added eight.
