ELYRIA — When you’ve been a head coach through 934 games, it’s nice to get an easy victory now and then.
Elyria High coach Bob Walsh has now pocketed 637 victories in a career that has spanned five decades, and Friday’s 82-53 triumph over outmanned Parma became the most recent addition to his memoirs.
It’s especially nice when your team displays a pretty solid effort on both ends of the floor. The Pioneers won for the 11th time in 14 games. Parma fell to 2-12.
“We’ve been working in practice on our various sets and stuff like that,” said Walsh. “Brett’s (assistant coach Brett Larrick) spent a lot of time with them, getting them to run the plays the right way and getting on them a little bit about their picks and setting things up the way they should be set up.
“And timing. We thought we were getting a little sloppy on offense. So we spent a lot of time this week trying to get the offense a little more efficient.”
Efficient they were.
Granted, Parma came to town having won just twice this year and the Redmen have been on the short end of the last 10 outings with Elyria. Nevertheless, the Pioneers hit 12 of their 19 shots in the first quarter in rolling up a
25-13 advantage. In one stretch, four different players made beautiful feeds for easy layups and Elyria forced seven turnovers, while committing just one.
“We ran the set plays and the set plays got us layups,” Walsh said. “There wasn’t too much free-lancing done when you run set plays.”
Demetrius Dalton and Rayshawn Camel were the only Pioneers in double figures with 19 and 15 points, respectively, but Walsh was able to utilize all 14 of the players he dressed for the Northeast Ohio Conference crossover contest. Elyria overwhelmed the Redmen on the boards, 44-30, with Mykel Williams (8), Seryrell Davis (7), Dalton (6) and Ricky Smallwood (5) combining for 26 rebounds and Travis Noble, Michael Higginbotham, John Yeoples and Kare King gathering another four each.
Elyria’s biggest lead was 74-36 with four minutes to play.
Walsh even had time to smile about a comment made earlier in the week by North Ridgeville’s Bill Noggle.
“He said he had the best coaching staff in the county,” said Walsh, as he pointed to his assistants. “I’d like to rebut that. I’d have to say mine is the best.”
Contact Tim Gebhardt at 329-7135
or ctsports@chroniclet.com.

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