by Nick Broulis
CANTON, Ohio– In a battle between the D1 North Canton Hoover Vikings and D3 Canton Central Catholic Crusaders, this game was about defense, defense and yes, more defense for the first three quarters. But Canton Central Catholic managed to finally get it going and ended their two-game losing streak with a 51-40 victory over the North Canton Hoover Vikings Tuesday night at Central Catholic high school.
In the first quarter, neither team could get any shots to go down. Whether the shots were contested or not, they just simply weren’t falling. There were a lot of balls being deflected and swarming defense by both Hoover and Central Catholic. The Vikings led 10-8 after the first.
In the second quarter, again, both teams showed up defensively, but both Hoover and the Crusaders were looking to push the ball in transition. It looked like this game might finally start to show some signs of scoring, but not only were both teams playing good in half court defense, but both North Canton Hoover and Canton Central Catholic played extremely well when it came to transition defense. Both squads wouldn’t allow either to get down the court for any easy layups. The exception to this, was when senior Cortez Simmons drove to the rim and got a layup to go on a very difficult angle. He completed the three-point play with 4:35 left in the second. The Crusaders and Vikings went into the half tied at 20.
The Crusaders came out on a 4-0 run and later senior Stone Sirpilla and fellow senior Brian Shepard hit back-to-back 3-pointers. Despite the 4-0 run to start the third and back to back 3-point shots from Central Catholic, the Crusaders only managed to out-score the Vikings 10-6 in the third.
The fourth was a different story.
With the score going into the fourth quarter at 30-26, Canton Central Catholic out-scored the Hoover Vikings 21-14. It would have been 21-8 if not for two 3-pointers from Hoover. Central Catholic hit the Vikings with a 7-0 run midway through the fourth quarter and that seemed to take the life out of Todd Blackledge’s Vikings.
“Anytime we can beat a Division I team like Hoover, especially after two tough losses over the weekend, on top of the fact that we’re a division three team, it’s great,” Canton Central Catholic head coach Matt Creamer said after the game. “It helped when we hit some big 3s and I thought we played better defensively and were switching things up at that end of the floor”.
When talking about his offense, Creamer also said, “if we can hit shots and get it going offensively, we can play with anyone, anywhere”.
GAME SUMMARY: Both teams played well defensively until Central Catholic was able to pull away in the fourth quarter. Once the Crusaders made their 7-0 run, the game seemed to get out of hand.
Next up for the Central Catholic Crusaders: Saturday, Feb. 3, at Saints Peter’s in Mansfield, Ohio
Next up for North Canton Hoover Vikings: Friday, Feb. 2, vs Canton McKinley in North Canton, Ohio
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