AUSTINBURG TOWNSHIP — Grand River Academy’s Josh Hartz, like any basketball coach, wants the Eagles to give him their best. To that end, he called a players-only meeting and asked his players to find a way to give him what he’s asking for.
The meeting paid off and Hartz got exactly what he was asking for in the form of a 68-24 victory over SS. John and Paul on Friday night at GRA.
“After the last couple of games, we talked about individual basketball,” Hartz said. “(Playing individual basketball) is the key reason we haven’t been able to pull out the close ones.
“I had the senior captains hold a meeting. All the players listed all their grievances. I had an assistant coach there to mediate, so I had nothing to do with it. It obviously worked. They got al their grievances out. They all worked as one unit the whole night. Even the bench players.”
The Eagles (7-6) jumped to a 9-0 lead in the opening two minutes.
“They wanted it more than we did,” SJP coach Tom Penna said. “They came after us with pressure all over the floor. The first four minutes were the most important (and the Heralds trailed, 11-2, during that time). We turned the ball over way too many times.
“We made the comment before the game, they warmed up harder than us.”
That early advantage was just what the Eagles wanted.
“We definitely wanted to intimidate them,” GRA guard Brant O’Brien said. “We got their confidence down. That’s what we wanted to do in the first quarter. We wanted to let them know this was our house and they weren’t going to come in here and win a game.
“We did a great job tonight.”
That opening flurry had the Heralds (1-12) wondering what hit them.
“That’s when the youth kicks in,” Penna said. “We’d try and run a play, they’d steal the ball and go in for a layup. We come down and try run another play, and they’d go down and get a layup.
“Right off the bat, we were down, 7-0, and our players were like, ‘Oh, my God!’ You could see it in their faces. They’re young and haven’t played enough and they got shellshocked.”
Brady Prewitt led the Eagles with 20 points and four assists and O’Brien netted 19 points and three steals. Jackson Berry scored eight points. All 11 GRA players who entered the game scored at least two points.
“It was nothing I said or did,” Hartz said. “That’s them making up their minds at this juncture of the season to set aside their differences and come together. The team wants to take each quarter, each game, and work as a full unit.
“When they do that, they make my job easy. That’s the players buying into the team concept.”
After scoring 40 points in the first half, the Eagles slowed the pace a little and tallied just 28 in the final two quarters.
“In the second half, we tried to work on our offense,” Hartz said. “We spread the floor and and looked for open shots. That’s the way the game is supposed to be played instead of one-of-one.”
“That’s a hell of a job for (Hartz) the way he did that,” Penna said with gratitude. “That’s two times in a row they had the chance to really blow us out and he held the kids back. That’s a lot of class by those guys.”
Ralph Pugliese scored nine points for the Heralds, Alex Iarocci tallied eight and Ben Thomas added five.
Sports
Eagles soar — together — to big W
Stressing team play, GRA has its way with SJP
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Riverside sneaks past Edgewood
Riverside wrestling coach Scott Blank learned a good deal of what he knows from Edgewood coach Greg Stolfer as a former Warrior great. Thursday, he used a bit of that knowledge to get the better of his old coach as the Beavers bested the Warriors, 31-28, at Edgewood.
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Madison rolls past Geneva
Madison recovered from coming out on the short end of a pin in the first match of the night by taking six of the next seven matches against Geneva and capped the night with pins from their last pair of grapplers in dismantling the Eagles, 49-17.
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Boys tourney returning to county
On Feb. 27, for the first time in 20 years, postseason boys basketball will return to Ashtabula County when the Division II sectional-district tournament comes to Lakeside high school.
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Dragons dump Lakers in drink
Despite the fact his girls have been through a tough season, Lakeside coach Rob Livingston spoke as though he had sensed that better things might be around the corner.
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Mustangs dominate Heralds
In their last home game of the season, the Grand Valley Mustangs rose to the occasion on Senior Night, defeating the SS. John and Paul Heralds, 59-28.
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Clark, Francis help give Falcons Liberty
Paige Clark led an attack that saw three Jefferson players reach double figures and Rachel Francis had a triple-double as the Falcons blasted visiting Liberty, 59-17, in an All-American Conference game Thursday night in Falcon Gym.
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Scholastic Statistics:
WRESTLING
NON-CONFERENCE
Riverside 31, Edgewood 28
at Edgewood -
Scholastic Schedule:
FRIDAY, FEB. 10
Boys Basketball
n Lakeside at Madison
n Conneaut at Edgewood
n Liberty at Jefferson (WFUN)
n South at Geneva
n PV at Bloomfield
n Grand Valley at Southington
n Riverside at North
n Harvey at Perry -
PV prevails
Cody Miller and Zach Campbell knew what they had to do in order for the Pymatuning Valley wrestling team to complete a come-from-behind victory over Jefferson on Wednesday at triangular match at PV.
The pair delivered exactly that and the Lakers pulled off the win, 37-36. -
Eagles bounce back
The Geneva girls didn’t have much time to regroup. But just one day after a heartbreaking defeat, they were able to knock off a strong Perry team on the road, 39-33.
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