Boys basketball: Admiral King runs down North Ridgeville
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LORAIN — Admiral King coach Al Stacey sat back and smiled in relief following Tuesday night’s game.
That’s because his Admirals used solid defense and an 18-rebound advantage to down North Ridgeville 51-39 at The Shot Palace for their first win of the season.
In a matchup of Lorain County’s winningest teams from a year ago, the former Erie Shore Conference rivals battled back-and-forth until a 14-0 run that lasted exactly eight minutes propelled the Admirals to the win.
“Defensively, we’re getting better and better,” Stacey said. “That’s where we’ve improved the most since the season’s begun, and we really showed that tonight. That, and we finally started getting the ball in the right spots to get some good shots. You’ve got to get the ball in the paint, and we got it there, and we converted when we did.
“Man, it’s always fine to get that first win, I ain’t kidding you.”
The Admirals outrebounded the Rangers 40-22 an turned a lot of those boards into second-chance points.
Despite that, Ridgeville (2-1) was in control early, leading 18-13 after one. When Mark Szylakowski hit a pair of free throws with 5:03 left in the first half, the Rangers led 22-16.
But they didn’t score again until 5:03 remained in the third quarter.
Meanwhile, the Admirals (1-2) ended the first half with 11 unanswered points to take a 27-22 halftime lead. Senior Anton Chaney-Harris, who finished with game-highs in points (17) and rebounds (16), scored six points during the run, while Tevin Jones had four of his 14 points.
“It was good (to get a double-double), but I was happy to finally see our team get a win,” said the 6-foot-3 Chaney-Harris. “I think I did all I could in this game and I look forward to bringing the same intensity to our next game.
“I think we played great (defensively), but I still think we could do better. We can always improve.”
Gary Donald, who finished with nine points and 10 boards, hit a 15-footer to open the third quarter and Chaney-Harris added a free throw to make it a 14-0 run and a 30-22 King lead.
Three straight free throws by Conor Sullivan, who led the Rangers with 15 points, with 5:03 remaining in the third snapped the scoreless drought. However, Jones hit back-to-back 3-pointers to end the quarter and keep the Admirals ahead 36-29 heading into the fourth.
“You’ve got to give them credit,” North Ridgeville coach Bill Noggle said. “They played great defensively. We knew coming in they were a great defensive team. We’ve just really got to focus on executing our offense, and that’s been our problem, even through our first two wins.”
“We were just looking for stuff that worked,” he said of King’s 14-0 run. “We were just struggling. We tried many different things, but we’ll get there. We’ll learn what works, what doesn’t work and learn to execute a lot better.”
The Rangers hung around, using an 8-4 run to start the fourth to cut King’s lead to 42-37 with 2:06 remaining. However, the Admirals outscored the Rangers 8-2 the rest of the way to put the game out of reach.
“I thought the way we went after the boards was pretty good,” Stacey said. “I liked the way we took the ball inside, and I think we’ve got two of the best inside players around in Anton and Gary Donald. We’re going to use them the best we can, and we used them to the best of their abilities tonight.”
There were some fireworks during the last minute of the game. Chaney-Harris attempted a dunk as time wound down and was fouled. At that point, Noggle and Admirals assistant coach Collin Irish began exchanging words.
When the buzzer sounded, Noggle and the Rangers coaching staff began arguing with Stacey and the Admirals coaching staff and had to be separated. Eventually, cooler heads prevailed.
The Admirals allowed 18 points in the first quarter, but held North Ridgeville to just 17 the remaining three quarters.
“That’s not bad defense, especially for the way (North Ridgeville) wanted to play,” Stacey said. “They hold the ball a lot and throw a lotta, lotta, lotta passes. But we kind of anticipated that.
“We got off to a slow start defensively for the third game in a row, and that comes from a lack of communication. I don’t like to get mad, but once I got mad and started hollering about it, their communication got better and they played better defense as a result.”
Admiral King 51, North Ridgeville 39
NORTH RIDGEVILLE (39): Conor Sullivan 6-3-15, Zack Wade 3-2-8, Mark Szylakowski 2-2-6, Dominique Qualls 3-0-6, Nick Alpine 0-0-0, Radu Aron 2-0-4, Robert Michael 0-0-0, Ben Nelson 0-0-0. Totals 16-7-39.
ADMIRAL KING (51): Anton Chaney-Harris 5-7-17, Tevin Jones 4-2-14, Gary Donald 2-5-9, Pete Rufo 2-0-5, Theron Nelson 0-0-0, Louis Mendez 1-1-4, Octavius Jones 0-2-2, Jerome Golson 0-0-0. Totals 15-16-51.
North Ridgeville 18 4 7 10 — 39
Admiral King 13 14 9 15 — 51
Three-point goals: North Ridgeville 0-5, Admiral King 5-10 (T. Jones 3, Rufo, Mendez). Field goals: North Ridgeville 15-46 (35 percent), Admiral King 15-37 (41 percent). Free throws: North Ridgeville 7-11 (63 percent), Admiral King 16-28 (57 percent). Rebounds: North Ridgeville 22 (Aron 6), Admiral King 40 (Chaney-Harris 16). Turnovers: North Ridgeville 16; Admiral King 19.
JV: Admiral King, 45-30
Contact Dan Gilles at 329-7135 or dangilles73@gmail.com.
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