A second quarter surge by the Strongsville Mustangs resulted in a difficult comeback attempt for the Rocky River Pirates as they lost, 77-66, Dec. 8.
Leading, 18-15, after one quarter, Strongsville went on an 11-3 run, which consisted of eight-straight points by Bernie McGivern, including two 3-pointers that gave the Mustangs a 37-23 lead with 3:35 remaining before halftime. Strongsville converted on five of its eight 3-point attempts in the quarter, giving it a 41-32 lead at the break. Rocky River’s Zach Waite cut the game to single digits as he split a pair of free throws.
“They do a nice job of sharing the ball well, they spread you around with shooters,” Rocky River coach Mike Murray said. “For us, we weren’t containing the ball, we weren’t sound defensively but you also have to give them a lot of credit for that as well. That’s something we have to go back and work on and something we have to give credit to them too, for spacing us out and finding the open guy.”
The Pirates’ Jack Corrigan kept the team in contention as he paced Rocky River with 17 first-half points, including four 3-pointers. However, he was locked down defensively and held to two points in the second half.
Cue Eric Jones.
Jones second 19 points in the second half, including 13 in the fourth quarter to help trim Rocky River’s deficit to seven points at 66-59 with 2:27 remaining in the game. The Pirates trailed by as many as 15 in the period.
“Eric (Jones) had a tough start to today’s game and boy did he get aggressive and that’s what we like to see in the second half,” Murray said.
In addition to his game-high 23 points, Jones tallied five rebounds, three assists and came up with two steals.
Strongsville played keep away for the final minutes of the game forcing Rocky River to foul in order to extend the game. The Mustangs converted on 11 of its 14 free throws during that span.
Mustangs’ guard Sean Aske fueled the team offensively, scoring 20 points and dishing out five assists. He also tallied three rebounds and had three steals in the game.
Strongsville improves to 3-0 on the season and Rocky River falls to 1-1. The Pirates head to Valley Forge on Dec. 11 with hopes to comeback from the loss.
“We just need to contain the basketball, stay in front, moving our feet, not reaching or fouling, those kinds of things,” Murray said. “The second thing is, we have to rebound the basketball. We weren’t able to get any easy baskets because we were either taking the ball out of the basket because they scored or it took three or four chances for us to get the rebound, now we can’t do the outlet, now we can’t score. I thought they did a great job of not giving us easy baskets. Those two things will help us get out in transition and get some easy looks”
