There was no doubt in anyone’s mind that the wear and tear from Friday night’s win over St. Edward in overtime had a little effect on the Wildcats energy level and play Saturday night in the loss to North Canton Hoover in the Mercy Medical Center Classic.
With the 77-58 win over the Wildcats, Hoover now has a legit shot at moving up in the top ten state rankings. They are a team that has knocked off statewide powers in McKinley, 81-68, and Jackson, 65-54. Hoover is head coached Todd Blackledge, a three-year starting quarterback and national champion at Penn State, and currently serves as a college football analyst on ESPN Radio.
The Vikings got to the Wildcats early on, jumping out to a 10-3 lead in the first quarter that saw Nathan Fox hit a big three ball to open up the lead that they never gave up.
Michael Spear and Austen Yarian helped the Wildcats get back in it with a nice transition ball cutting the lead to 12-7, but the play of Eli Blackledge really made the difference for how Saint Ignatius was trying to play offensively, winning the battle inside all night.
Saint Ignatius started the second quarter firing, cutting the lead to 14-13 with 7:16 to play on a steal and score by Neeko Melendez to Luke Wiskes. However, that would be as close as the Wildcats would get all night.
Nathan Fox was lighting it up for Hoover as he hit a big three ball to extend the Vikings lead back to seven, 20-13, with 4:59 remaining in the first half. Then Eli Blackledge, son of coach Todd, drew an and-1 making it 23-13, which started to really frustrate the Wildcats. Hoover was leading 33-22 at the break.
At halftime, the Wildcats were shooting 36% from the field, and hit just two three-pointers. They turned the ball over 7 times in the first half, compared to Hoover turning it over just 5 times. For the Vikings, Nathan Fox sprinted out to 15 first half points, as he was shooting an electric 83%. In the second half, he would not slow down.
Fox found a wide open Matt Chufar, who had career game last night for the Vikings with 12 points. That made it 43-28 Vikings. And then the Wildcats let Fox wide open underneath the basket to make it 49-30 Hoover with under two minutes remaining in the third.
The Wildcats looked out of sorts, and had a different lineup than most people were used to seeing. Jon Barnes, Michael Spear, Luke Wiskes, Neeko Melendez, and Aymin Bahhur at one point were all out on the floor for the Wildcats in the third quarter, which was a different rotation Wildcats fans have not seen yet this season. Matt Davet and Austen Yarian were not active most of the night, due in part to foul trouble, as Saint Ignatius was trailing 51-35 heading to the third quarter.
However, the Wildcats showed signs of a comeback in the fourth quarter. A Matt Davet transition layup would cut the lead to 51-39 with 7:00 left. And then a Spear three ball that hit the top of the backboard and then fell in make it 52-42 Hoover with 6:07 remaining. The following possession, Spear did it again, cutting the leading 52-44 with 5:57 left.
But Austen Yarian would foul out of the game with 5:51 remaining and that left the Wildcats with little size left.
Dom Dinunzio hit a big three to cut the lead to 9 with 3:59 remaining, 58-49, and then Neeko Melendez would get fancy with an acrobatic layup making it a 7 point game with 3:43 remaining, the closest the Wildcats were at since the first half. Then Luke Wiskes hit a three, cutting the lead to 7 once again with 2:55 remaining. The Wildcats needed defense the rest of the way if they wanted to sustain this comeback, but Matt Chufar would call game.
A Chufar corner three ball with 2:26 remaining sealed the deal for Hoover stretching their lead out to 11, and the Vikings didn’t slow down after that, winning their 9th straight game in a row and moving to 11-1 on the season.
Head Coach Brian Becker ‘77: “Coming off an overtime, emotionally charged victory over St. Edward where our top 7 or 8 guys played extensive minutes, having to come down here and playing a good Hoover team, we had some heavy legs, but that’s no excuse. I thought we could have executed a little bit better. We got the game down to 7 or 8 at one particular point. The guys coming off the bench gave good effort. Dom, Neeko, Barnes all gave some really good effort off the bench, and those are positive minutes for those guys. It’s part of the process, and that’s what you take away. Every game has some silver lining, and the silver lining today is we got some of our bench guys valuable minutes against a good Hoover team.”
The Wildcats will now look to get back on the winning track next Saturday at the St. Stan’s Social Center on the campus of Cleveland Central Catholic and will look to take down the Ironmen for the second straight season. The Wildcats knocked off the Ironmen last year in overtime inside Sullivan Gymnasium.
“We’ll get after it like we did last week," Becker said. "We’ll have to sit down with the coaching staff and figure out what Central does best. We’ll game plan for that this week and be back in action and ready for Saturday.”