PAINESVILLE TOWNSHIP —
Following his team’s 60-48 non-conference loss to visiting Euclid, Riverside boys coach Rick Durkovic talked about the shots that might have been.
Actually, the shots that were, but might have been baskets.
“We had layups, and we missed layups,” he said. “Quite a few layups.”
Overall, the Beavers (4-11, 3-8) hit just 15-of-55 shots from the field on Tuesday, for a cold 27.3 percent.
Durkovic referred to a juncture in the middle of the third quarter when Pat Cunningham (10 points) scored on a drive to close the gap, which had reached as high as 10 points at 30-20 in the first half, to three at 36-33.
“I think there might have been three or four layups in a row after that,” he said. “And we didn’t finish.”
The Panthers (4-10) pushed it back out to 42-33 on the only 3-point basket of the game, courtesy of Melek Sims, and a three-point play by Ty’Lnn Alexander (10 points, 4 assists, 4 steals, 3 blocks) after his own theft.
Both sides then went scoreless over the last three minutes of the period, and then the teams basically traded points for the following six minutes, with the margin varying between seven and 10.
Finally, Euclid ran off nine-consecutive points on six-of-eight free throws and then a three-point play off a dunk by Chavez Harper (12 points, 12 rebounds, 3 blocked shots). That came off a block and rebound by Alexander, and stretched it from 51-44 to 60-44.
“To their credit, they were attacking us off the dribble very well,” Euclid coach Greg James said. “And we decided to switch up to a 1-2-2 zone. After that, they got a couple open shots. So we had to go back to our man pressure.”
“We were trying to foul (during the time we were trading points), and they weren’t always finishing at the line,” Durkovic said. “But we couldn’t come down and score.”
The game was a relative foul-fest, with 47 combined. The Panthers hit 21 of their 34 free throws, as compared to 18-of-24 for the Beavers. Euclid’s Anthony Coleman fouled out with 5:51 left, and Alexander did so in the final moments. Riverside’s Jeff Wyman didn’t foul out, but missed a lot of time with foul problems.
Chandler Smith had eight points, 10 boards and five thefts for Riverside, while Adam Hockman had 10 points, Jared Nalepa blocked three shots and Ryan Sadler put in nine of his 12 points in the fourth quarter, all for Riverside.
Dallas Ferritto scored eight points for Euclid.
As James pointed out, Coleman is a freshman, and Ferritto and Harper are sophomores, and all started Tuesday.
One statistic that didn’t come pout good for the Beavers was that only three of its 15 baskets were assisted.
“Running our offense should lead to (a higher percentage of assisted baskets), but I think some of those may have been some of those layups that we didn’t finish,” he said.
The Panthers never trailed, and led from the time it was 6-4. Riverside got off to a sloppy start, and ended up turning the ball over seven more times (22-15) than Euclid.
Sloppiness, however, does not necessarily translate to lack of effort.
“The kids play hard; they do,” Durkovic said. “And (our) guys really came out and played hard early on.”
James related that in the Panthers’ previous game, they lost to Shaker Heights by 46 points. However, the next day, everyone was at practice on time, and on Monday, all were ready to go.
“Riverside came out and played hard,” James said. “We came out and played hard. Just all credit to both teams. It was a fun game to be a part of.”
Goldman is a freelance writer from South Euclid.
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