Paying a visit to the variety store...



Goin’ dancing

The area has a connection to the NCAA Basketball Tournament, albeit at the Division II level.

Tom Church, known in these parts as one of the best basketball players to come out of Ashtabula County and a former head coach at his alma mater, Conneaut High School, is an assistant coach for the Saint Joseph’s College men’s squad.

The Pumas will take on Kentucky Wesleyan College in a first-round contest today. The contest will take place on KWC’s home floor in the Sportscenter in Owensboro, Kent.

SJC received one of 20 at-large bids from the NCAA Division II Basketball Committee to participate in the tournament, which consists of the 42 best teams in the country.

Thanks mostly to their 15 in-region victories, the Pumas are the eighth seed in the Midwest Regional. Kentucky Wesleyan (29-4) dropped the Great Lakes Valley Conference Tournament championship game Sunday to Bellarmine University, 79-69.

Tonight’s game, which will tip off at 7, will be a rematch of a game the two teams played Jan. 2 on the same floor. KWC claimed a 102-92 win that night and finished 17-1 at home this season, including wins in its last dozen contests.

Kentucky Wesleyan has great tradition, having won eight D-II national titles and is making its 36th trip to the national tournament.

Church & Co. have some tradition with their program, too, making the trip to nationals for the second time in three years, the 11th trip to nationals in program history. SJC and KWC have become quite familiar with one another, having played seven times in the last four seasons, KWC holding a slim edge, 4-3.

In the nightcap today, defending national champion Findlay, which won the championship a year ago with former Harvey great Morgan Lewis being a centerpiece on the squad, will tangle with Grand Valley State, tipoff set for 8:30. The winners of tonight’s games will square off Sunday at 8:30 in a second-round game.

Church went to SJC as the top assistant in July 2007. With his help, the Pumas went 18-12 and earned a berth in the NCAA Tournament. Last season, the Pumas went 15-13 before rebounding to return to nationals this season.

Before heading to Indiana, Church was an assistant at Division III Hiram College.

He was the head coach at Conneaut in the 2004-05 and 2005-06 seasons, having succeeded his high school coach, Kent Houston, at the helm of the Spartans.

A 2003 graduate of Ashland College, that’s where Church first hooked up with St. Joseph’s head coach, Richard Davis. They were teammates for two seasons at Ashland and Church played for Davis there for one season. Church earned four letters at Ashland, being named team captain as a senior, and he was a two-time academic All-Great Lakes Intercollegiante Athletic Conference honoree.

Church graduated with a bachelor of science degree in education from Ashland in 2003 and earned a master of education in administration degree, also from Ashland, in 2006.

During his playing days at Conneaut, Church was a tremendous player, leading the Spartans to 19-2 record and the outright Northeastern Conference championship as a senior in 1997-98.

That season, he earned first-team All-Ohio recognition and was named NEC and Star Beacon Ashtabula County Player of the Year.

In three varsity seasons for the Spartans, Church scored 1,086 points, still third-most in school history, and ranks 23rd in Ashtabula County boys basketball history with that point total.



No missing link

Former Geneva standout Stephen Ellis is teeing off his senior season as a member of the golf team at Mount Union College.

Ellis, beginning his fourth seaon on the links for for coach Dan MacDuffie’s squad, and his Purple Raider teammates are currently on their spring trip at prestigious Pinehurst in North Carolina.



More men of mat

Since our look at the local guys who are now wrestling at the collegiate level appeared earlier this week, two more names have been sent our way.

Lakeside graduate Isaac Moore and Jefferson graduate Nate Meyer both wrestled at Thiel College this winter.

Moore, a freshman, wrestled at 197 pounds for the Tomcats.

Meyer, aka “The Big Show,” went at it a 285 pounds as a sophomore for coach Craig Thurber’s squad, which finished 8-9 in dual meets this winter.

Moore is a 2009 Lakeside graduate.

Meyer is a 2008 Jefferson graduate.



Reminder

If you have a son or daughter playing a spring sport at the collegiate level, please drop me a line at the email address listed at the end of this column.



Radio waves

Though the Lakeside Dragons were eliminated in a dogfight against top-seeded and state-ranked Mentor in a Division I district semifinal contest Thursday night at Doc Daugherty Gymnasium in Euclid, basketball fans can follow the team that ended the first appearance in district tournament play in school history if they so choose.

Joe “Mr. Sports” Pete — aka, The King of Ashtabula County Media — and Bad Brad Ellis will call the Mentor-Brush district final today at 7 p.m. The game can be heard on Media One’s oldies station, 102.5-FM.



McCormack is the sports editor of the Star Beacon. Reach him at donmac@suite224.net.