By MARC TOBIAS
mtobias@dailystandard.com
Celina finished off a great weekend with a 68-49 win over Toldedo
Central Catholic at home Saturday night.
The Bulldogs used an aggressive defense and red-hot shooting
to down the Irish.
Central, a perimeter led team, rarely got an open look from
outside while the Bulldogs blistered the nets by shooting 62
percent (26-for-42) from the field.
The Irish missed their first nine shots from behind the three-point
arc while Celina connected on 8-of-16 from three-point range.
“That was huge, actually, I don’t know how many
people know us around here, but three-point shooting is usually
what makes us click,” said first-year Central coach Paul
Patterson. “We just couldn’t hit anything, and the
Celina kids shot the lights out. They’re just a very nice
ball club. We saw some of the better players we’ve seen
all year.”
To see Central’s struggles, you had to look no farther
then the Irish’s top two scorers.
Dan Amato, Central’s top threat, missed his first six
three-point attempts while Zach Hartle finished with seven points
on 3-of-11 shooting.
Amato finished with 20 points, but the majority of his points
came after the Irish were out of the game.
“We knew Toledo was a very good basketball team, and we
talked about coming out and focusing defensively on guarding
their shooters, they had some very nice perimeter shooters and
they had some nice big kids,” said Celina coach Mike Kanney.
“I thought we did a decent job of guarding them early
in the game. We got out to an early lead and the kids did a
nice job throughout the game guarding Amato.”
The Irish finished by making 19-of-49 shots, a 39-percent clip.
Meanwhile, the Bulldogs offense was machine like, busting the
Irish with backdoor layups which would eventually lead to wide
open looks from behind the arc.
Tim Homan helped loosen up the outside by throwing down a two-handed
dunk on a back door cut for the game’s opening score.
A Homan three-pointer and an Adam Tindall bucket had Celina
out to a quick 7-0 lead.
Homan was then fouled on a three-point attempt, and when he
hit all three free throws the Bulldogs were up 10-2.
“The coaches were talking downstairs, and he’s (Homan)
one of the top two kids we’ve faced all year,” Patterson
said. “The other is B.J. Raymond from Toledo St. John’s,
and I told the kids to try and not be too discouraged, because
he’s (Homan) a college basketball player.”
Homan finished with 28 points, four shy of his career-high on
11-of-16 shooting from the field.
Celina finished the first quarter with a 16-8 lead and went
into the half up 11 at 31-20.
The Bulldogs defense stayed focused in the second half, and
a Scott Boley steal and assist to Joe Kanney made it 35-20 in
Celina’s favor.
Kanney then finished off Celina’s 7-0 run to start the
third by draining a three-pointer.
Kanney finished with eight points, and was one of five Bulldogs
to connect from behind the three-point arc.
Boley hit two from three-point range as he finished with 11
points. Brian Geise and Brian Gagle both hit threes, and the
duo combined for 15 points on 6-for-7 shooting from the field.
“I thought offensively we moved well, we had good spacing
and the kids did a good job of looking for each other,”
Kanney said. “When you do that you’re going to score
some point and I thought we did a nice job.”
The win improves Celina to 9-2 while Central falls to 6-5.
“Good weekend, we know we have a dog fight next week going
to Elida,” Kanney said.
|
