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ATHENS — Logan
Elm wasn’t suppose to make it back to the district tournament this year.
But they did.
And the Braves definitely weren’t suppose to beat state-ranked and
Southeast District favorite McClain.
But they did that too.
Logan Elm suffocated the McClain offense for most of the night, holding
the Tigers to just 11 first half points in a 53-43 win at the Ohio
University Convocation Center Friday evening.
“To come down and beat a team here in the Convo with a great team,
program and player, this has to be one of the greatest wins in Logan Elm
basketball history,” LE coach Doug Stiverson said. “But this is just one
win and one step to where we want to go. Our kids did a good job of not
overeating to the win.”
The Braves (18-5) with the victory avenge two-straight tournament
losses to McClain, and advance to the Division II district championship
game a week from today against Mid-State League rival Fairfield Union.
“I just can’t say enough about my kids heart and toughness,” Stiverson
said. “We told our kids at the beginning of the week that they needed to
believe they could win this one.
“What happened in
the past stays in the past, and we just had to concentrate on what we
had to do and the kids bought into it.”
McClain took an
early 5-0 lead on a banked three-pointer from junior Dante Jackson and
two free throws from Heath McNeal in the opening two minutes.
From that point,
however, McClain (21-2) found the going on offense tough as Logan Elm
packed in the paint with between two to three players most of the night.
The defending
district champion Tigers were only able to score six more points over
the next 14:05 and shot two for 16 in the process.
“We wanted to
force their other kids to shoot threes and they weren’t able to get them
to fall,” Stiverson said “ ... Dante made six or seven threes last time
and if we could turn those into twos, there is six or seven points less.
We wanted to force him inside to take twos and try to limit them to one
shot.
“We also wanted to get a lead on them early and make them a little
tighter, which also made them force some shots.”
Logan Elm came
back strong as a Kyle Reichelderfer putback, a layup from Cody Leist and
a follow of his own missed shot from Evan Blake put the Braves out in
front for good with a 6-5 lead at 3:17 to go in the first quarter.
The bucket by
Blake forced a timeout by McClain coach Rick Van Matre, but coming out
of the timeout Van Matre was issued with a technical foul, sending Blake
to the charity stripe for two free throws that made it 8-5 Logan Elm.
A deliberate
Logan Elm offense kept the game slow in the second quarter.
Blake took a feed
from brother Bryant Blake for a three-ball while Jamie Morris and Ryan
Hoffman each added layups from off of Evan Blake passes.
“I wasn’t
expecting that,” Blake said of his game-leading 28 point performance.
“But once I got into the groove, I felt pretty comfortable.
“They run that
matchup zone and after the first couple of passes, they went to
man-to-man and that’s what we wanted them to do. I got McNeal and
Webster out on me a few times and I was able to break them down. That
was to our advantage and goes back to our coaching. We followed the game
plan.”
The Braves held
McClain to just two field goals in the second quarter, both from Jeremy
Webster, and two free throws from Dante Jackson — who was held to just
five first half points.
“Kyle was on
Dante all night and never came off of him,” Stiverson said. “I can’t say
enough about his toughness. He wanted to guard him (Jackson) from Day
One and I thought he did a great job on him tonight.”
Logan
Elm continued to build momentum coming out of the halftime break with
Reichelderfer stepping up to drain two straight treys to make it 23-11
Braves.
“It was important
early to come out strong,” Stiverson said. “To give up 11 points in the
first half was excellent, and to come out in the second half with Kyle
hitting a couple big threes to go up by 12 was big for us momentum wise.
“Last year the
third quarter was our downfall and we talked about coming out strong in
the three or four minutes to begin the quarter at halftime.”
After a jumper from Evan Blake, Reichelderfer hit one of two from the
line and Jamie Morris connected on a pair of free throws to put the
Braves up 28-17 after three quarters.
Both teams picked up the offense in the fourth quarter with McClain
turning to Webster inside with their second leading scorer McNeal on the
bench with four fouls.
Webster scored three of the first five McClain buckets in the fourth,
while Jackson added the other two on a pair of layups — the latter
taking a rebound and going coast-to-coast to cut the Logan Elm to under
10.
The Braves proved deadly from the free throw line in the fourth quarter
by making 17 out of 20 attempts for a stellar 85 percent average.
For the game, Logan Elm converted 22 of 26 free throws.
Logan Elm
eventually used two free throws from Blake and one from Chris Leasure to
put the lead back up to 46-31 with 1:19 left in the game to seal the
Braves return to the district title game.
McClain was held to just 14 of 49 shooting for the game (29 percent)
and only had three players score for the entire game.
Jackson led the Tigers with 22 points with Webster adding 12 and McNeal
nine.
“We worked all week at packing in the lane and working to stop their
big three of Jackson, McNeal and Jarrod Ralph,” Reichelderfer said. “Our
priority was to try and shut off those big three and not worry about
their other players as much.”
Logan Elm was slightly more balanced as a team, shooting 14 for 41 (34
percent) and having six players score.
Evan Blake posted a double-double for the Braves with 28 points and 12
rebounds with Reichelderfer adding 15 points.
Fairfield Union beat Hillsboro 54-45 in the night cap of the
double-header to advance. |
