NORTH OLMSTED — Olmsted Falls pulled off a neat trick Friday night, the way the Bulldogs walked directly into a buzz-saw and all, but still managed to come away without a scratch. The Eagles, the guys operating that buzz-saw for the first four-and-a-half minutes of their Southwestern Conference matchup, were a whole lot less fortunate.
They can only hope the scars heal quickly.
Falls shook off a dreadful start — to be specific, a four-and-a-half-minutes-without-a-point start — on the way to a thorough 74-57 thumping of the first-place Eagles on their home court.
Of course, with the win, it’s now the first-place Bulldogs, as well. And the first-place Shoremen and the first-place Demons, too. Yep, thanks to a Westlake win over Amherst and Avon Lake’s upset loss at Berea, the SWC has half of its teams tied for first with 5-2 records.
“It’s just a hard conference to deal with right now,” said Falls veteran coach Pat Donahue — and he didn’t even know Avon Lake had lost.
He did know that Westlake beat his ’Dogs by a point last week and that North Olmsted had lost to Amherst after already handing Avon Lake its only league loss before Friday night.
Friday’s game began as if North Olmsted (8-4 overall) was going to make a statement about its place in the conference. The Eagles, considered by many to be the preseason choice to win the league, ran the floor with ease and forced Falls into turnovers at seemingly every turn in building a 12-0 lead with 3:29 to go in the opening quarter.
But a change in tactics changed the game as Donahue decided to abandon the complicated defenses — the triangle-and-two and the 1-3-1 — his team had worked on all week and went to a basic full-court press that caused the Eagles all sorts of problems.
“It’s a new pressure for us,” Donahue said. “It’s more of a containing press. It’s about pressuring the right guys when they have the ball.”
“We forced their non-ballhandlers to bring it up the court,” said Falls senior Pat Pellerite, who scored a game-high 23 points and was all over the court despite playing with a sprained ligament in his right knee. “We love the pressure.”
Suddenly it was North Olmsted making the mistakes — 12 turnovers in the final 12 minutes of the first half – and the ’Dogs (6-7) managed to make it a game at halftime down just 30-27.
They made it a non-game in the third quarter.
The ’Dogs tied the score just 17 seconds into the half on Scott Kimmey’s 3-pointer – one of five Falls hit in the quarter and nine it had for the game.
The Eagles rallied briefly, taking a 36-33 lead with 5:11 left in the third, but from there Falls went on a frenzied 16-0 run and closed the quarter ahead 54-40. The Bulldogs scored as many points in the third quarter (27) as they did the entire first half, while forcing the Eagles into 10 turnovers, 23 for the game.
“As we continued to turn the ball over they seemed to get more confidence,” said Eagles coach Tim Schmotzer, whose team suffered its second straight league loss.
That showed as the ’Dogs started hitting everything in sight, including draining back-to-back-to-back threes during their run.
“If the right guys are shooting them, we are (a good 3-point shooting team),” said Donahue, after his team went 9-16 from behind the arc. “Tonight we had the right guys shooting them.”
“When you knock down shots, that breeds energy,” Schmotzer said. “They were doing that and we really weren’t. When they started hitting their shots, you could see our shoulders slump.”
Jim Brabenec had two of the threes for Falls on the way to 16 points, while Kimmey had three threes and 13 points and Tony Lanza had 12 points, all on threes. For the Eagles, their dynamic duo of Chris Arlinghaus and Kevin Kilbane had 11 and 15 points, respectively, while Matthew Roman led the way with 18.
“I thought at the beginning of the year we could have an impact in the conference,” Donahue said. “I didn’t know if we could win it, but I thought we could have an impact.”
Imagine what he … and the rest of the SWC, for that matter … thinks now.
Contact Kevin Aprile at 329-7135 or at kaprile@chroniclet.com.

Olmsted Falls 74, North Olmsted 57 
OLMSTED FALLS (74): Mark Hurrell 2-1-5, Jim Brabenec 3-8-16, Steve Bataglia 0-0-0, Scott Kimmey 4-2-13, Pat Pellerite 10-3-23, Tony Lanza 4-0-12, Orlando Glenn 1-1-3, John Atkinson 0-2-2. Totals 24-17-74.
NORTH OLMSTED (57): Matthew Roman 8-0-18, Chris Arlinghaus 4-1-11, George Bloomfield 0-0-0, Kevin Kilbane 5-5-15, Pat Hanrahan 4-0-8, David Hall 1-0-3, Eric Smith 0-0-0, Cory Benkowski 0-0-0, Nicholas Brown 0-0-0, Douglas Otter 1-0-2. Totals 23-6-57.
Olmsted Falls 11   16   27   20   —    74
North Olmsted 19   11   10   17   —    57
Three-point goals: Olmsted Falls 9-16 (Lanza 4, Kimmey 3, Brabenec 2), North Olmsted 5-16 (Roman 2, Arlinghaus 2, Hall). Free throws: Olmsted Falls 17-25 (68 percent), North Olmsted 6-15 (40 percent). Turnovers: North Olmsted 23, Olmsted Falls 14.
Junior varsity: Olmsted Falls, 62-58.

In order to comment, you must agree to our user agreement and discussion guidelines.

Need help? Email Us.