It may not have the easiest of Sectional Final games the Wildcats have ever played, but the most important thing is that Saint Ignatius dug deep and snuck away with a 65-50 win over Parma Senior on Saturday night in the final game of the year at Sullivan Gymnasium.
If you look at the final score, you may not believe that the Wildcats were actually trailing in the first quarter, and if it weren’t for Luke Wiskes, the Wildcats may have trailed heading into the second quarter. George Minich hit two big three’s for the Redmen to help them gain a 14-13 lead in the first quarter, and after that the Redmen were able to just hang around with the Wildcats for a good portion of the ballgame.
Kyle Lyon was on fire for Parma, burying a three ball with just under six minutes to play in the second quarter to snatch what would turn out to be Parma’s largest lead of the game at 19-17. Saint Ignatius hung tough with Parma and slowly returned to Wildcat Basketball after starting out a little slow. In the meantime, Parma managed to create a lot of open shots and stay in the game for a while.
Lyon, who also is the quarterback for the Redmen football team, hit another big three to tie the ballgame up at 23-23 with over three minutes left in the half. However, the Wildcats took charge and finished the half strong, featuring a Michael Spear and-1 to propel the Wildcats to a 32-25 lead at the break.
Parma Senior entered the game on a 5-game win streak, with victories coming over John Marshall, Cuyahoga Heights, Lincoln West, Bay Village, and Valley Forge in the Sectional Semifinal to advance to Saturday’s game. The Redmen showed that they had good old fashioned team belief in each other, and with the leadership from Kyle Lyon and George Minich, they showed they wanted to upset the Wildcats.
However, Saint Ignatius didn’t want their season to end in the Sectional Final. After a big Colin Goodfellow 3-pointer to jumpstart the Wildcats in the second half, Michael Spear made a slick, unselfish pass on a fast break to Devin Jackson to put the Wildcats up eleven, 37-26, in the third. But on the ensuing possession, the dunk of the year came from a 6’5’’ junior.
Flying through the lane, Goodfellow made a nice bounce pass to the junior Luke Wiskes who rose up and tomahawked it down to make it 39-28 Wildcats, forcing Parma to take a much needed timeout. It made everyone in the gym get loud in recognition of a spectacular play.
That dunk by Wiskes helped the Wildcats get a little momentum going, but back came the mighty Redmen of Parma, who would not go away without a fight. Zach Gronowski hit a big three ball to cut the lead 41-36 in the third quarter, and then in the fourth, the Wildcats’ lead would dwindle even more. Lyon drew a huge and-1 opportunity, and with the free throw, he cut the lead to 49-45 for Parma. The senior, who averages 18.5 points per game for the Redmen this year, then cut the lead to three points with a huge trey, 51-48, with 4:14 to go in regulation. Some of the Wildcat faithful started to get a little nervous.
However, have no fear, Matt Davet is here! With 3:49 to go, Davet, who was playing with three fouls for the entire second half, drew a huge and-1 himself and put the Wildcats back up 54-48. Moments later, Michael Spear knocked down a trey to increase the lead back to nine, 57-48. And then Jon Barnes officially put the game out of reach for Parma with a steal and drive to the hole to make it 59-48. The Wildcats answered on the offensive end in the closing minutes a few more times to win by 15, moving onto the District Semifinal and eliminating the Redmen from playoff contention.
With Matt Davet getting into foul trouble, Coach Becker had to use him cautiously, thus not playing as much as he would have hoped. He still contributed 15 points, tied for the team-high with his partner in crime, Austen Yarian. Michael Spear notched 10 points with a three, Barnes had 9 points, and Devin Jackson put up 7 points with a three ball.
The game-high would come from Parma’s Kyle Lyon who put up 20 points, which if you followed Parma Redmen basketball this season, is nothing new for the senior. He finished with 3 three-pointers. George Minich earned 12 points for Parma.
CHASING A RECORD: Entering Saturday’s game, senior forward Austen Yarian was 43 rebounds from the all-time school season record for most rebounds, which is 297 and currently held by assistant coach Dr. Tim Vala ‘76. After posting 13 rebounds in the win over Parma, he now has 267 rebounds and is 30 rebounds from tying the record, and hopefully breaking the record.
CRAZY STAT OF THE NIGHT: Saint Ignatius went 9-for-12 from the free throw line. Parma went to the charity stripe just twice, and his two free throws.
Head Coach Brian Becker ‘77: “In the playoffs, you have to win different games at different times, and certainly with Matt Davet playing limited minutes hurt us tonight with fouls. On a positive side, I think Jon Barnes off the bench was spectacular. He brought a lot of energy, he finished, he defended, made some really nice high low passes. I thought he was a spark that he needed. For Austen, I think he rebounded extremely well tonight.
“But the tournament is about you win a game and you move on. You put this game behind you. In the tournament, you have to have a short memory, because the next game is a different challenge with a better opponent. So we’ll look forward to playing Brecksville-Broadview Heights on Wednesday. I’m sure Brecksville has an axe to grind with us beating them last year. But we’ll go out and defend and see what happens.”
The Wildcats will indeed now gear up for a rematch with the No. 3 Brecksville-Broadview Heights Bees on Wednesday night at 7:00 at Strongsville High School in the District Semifinal. The Bees, who are now 17-6 after defeating John Marshall 72-51 in their Sectional Final, will look to avenge last year’s loss to the Wildcats where they fell 60-23, and saw Saint Ignatius hold the Bees scoreless in the entire third quarter.
Other Sectional Final games in the Strongsville District Saturday Night:
#8 Normandy upset #4 North Royalton 66-56
#2 St. Edward defeated #11 Lincoln West 90-40
The Invaders and Eagles will get to play after the Wildcats and Bees on Thursday night at Strongsville High School in the second District Semifinal. The winner of both those games will face off with each other in the District Final on Saturday at Strongsville High School at 7:00.
The Saint Ignatius Broadcast Network will once again have live, audio only coverage of the District Semifinal between Saint Ignatius and Brecksville-Broadview Heights Wednesday night, with the Cleveland Home Title Pregame Show starting at 6:45 with Matt MacKenzie ‘18 and Brendan DeVenney ‘17 on the call.