CLEVELAND — With four players standing 6-foot-9 — three of them ambulatory — St. Edward’s size was a concern for much smaller Elyria on Wednesday night.
The Pioneers would have to counter with 6-4 Seryrell Davis and 6-2 Travis Noble, plus three tiny guards 5-10 or shorter and hope for the best in their first regional tournament game in 31 years.
Yet in considering this lopsided height disadvantage, the words of a former Elyria High coach whose teams won four regional championships in the 1960s echoed out of the past.
“If size meant everything,” said the late Dale Reichenbach, “a cow could catch a rabbit.”
As he almost always was, Reichenbach was right. With their speed, quickness and pinpoint passing, the Pioneers basically neutralized the Eagles’ height. What made the difference in their 70-65 defeat in Cleveland State’s Wolstein Center was the personal-foul disparity.
OK, go ahead and say it. The officiating disparity.
Elyria was whistled for 21 personal fouls, St. Edward for nine. Three Pioneers — Noble, Promis Cabbil and Davis — fouled out. Only one Eagles player had more than a single personal foul, and that was Delbert Love with two.
“You can write that, I’m not allowed to say it,” Pioneers coach Bob Walsh said. “If I complain about the officiating, the OHSAA will come running up and say, ‘You’re a bad boy.’”
It’s true the officials didn’t squander a 13-point Elyria lead heading into the final eight minutes. True, it wasn’t the officials who failed to score for three minutes and 49 seconds while the Eagles put together a 21-2 run.
And it’s only fair to report that it was not the officials who, in that stretch of horror and futility, committed four personal fouls and three turnovers, and missed a 3-point shot, a jump shot and not one, but two layups.
That was the Pioneers coming apart and falling behind 61-55.
But it was the officials who made what might have been the worst call of the season. Noble came from behind the Eagles’
6-9 Tom Pritchard with 2:07 left in the game, made a clean steal and headed the other way. He thought he was off to the races with the Pioneers back in it, trailing 61-58. But a whistle sounded and he stopped, wondering what had happened.
It is not difficult to imagine his surprise when he learned he had been called for a foul — his fifth of the night and last of his high-school career.
“Pritchard had the ball,” Noble said. “He took a dribble and he had it out in front of him. I just came up and took it. I didn’t even know what happened, we were finishing the play.”
Even so, the Pioneers stayed close. They trailed only 64-63 after Demetrius Dalton drilled a 3-point basket with 1:36 to go. But that basket — which gave him 38 points for the game — turned out to be the final one of his high-school career.
The most dramatic basket of the night was Dalton’s second-quarter buzzer-beater from halfcourt. It banked off the glass and gave the Pioneers a 31-28 lead at the break.
“Man, the way Putt (Dalton) hit that made me smile so hard,” said 5-10 Rayshawn Camel, the tallest of the team’s three guards. “It was a good shot. I knew it was going in. You could tell by how he shot it. I know the shot. I’ve been playing with him since I was little.”
Elyria led 51-35 with 2:30 left in the third quarter and carried a 53-40 lead into the fourth. It wouldn’t last. When the Eagles’ Pritchard made a layup with 6:01 to go, he was fouled by Noble and converted the three-point play. It cut the Pioneers’ lead to 55-51 and made Eagles coach Eric Flannery very happy.
“We had a feeling once we cut it down to five or six that we were in a great position,” Flannery said. “I think there was 4:30 to go, we were down (55-54) and I called timeout just to settle our guys down. We had cut it to one and we didn’t want them to extend it after that.”
Contact Bob Daniels at 329-7135 or ctsports@chroniclet.com. 

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