Dublin Scioto High School boys basketball coach Tony Bisutti knew the success of this season depended on how much the cast around Clark Crum would mature.

The 6-foot-7 Crum and fellow senior Chris McLain (6-5) managed to build the lead for the seventh-seeded Irish to eight points in the fourth quarter last Saturday in a Division I district semifinal against Hilliard Davidson with a strong inside game.

It didn't take long to vanish.

The Wildcats' Michael Drobnick hit a 3-pointer that ignited a 10-2 run and enabled his team to hold on for a 58-53 win and move on to face Reynoldsburg on Saturday in a final in the Fairgrounds Coliseum.

"I'm really not sure that we could've executed or played any better, so I give all the credit to Davidson," said Bisutti, whose team finished 14-8 overall. "We executed three straight times out of timeouts. We scored and we got stops. We just didn't grab the ball. They're a tough, physical group and maybe they wanted the ball a little bit more there at the end."

Davidson had a one-point lead with 30 seconds left. That's when Tristan Welch took the ball from Crum and hit two free throws after he was fouled. The Wildcats iced the win by hitting four in a row from the foul line in the final seconds.

"Anytime you lose it's hard, especially when you're up by that much," said Crum, who scored 15. "It takes less than a second to hit a basketball and you've got four minutes left so we really we're up by much. They played well."

Drew Kambic led Davidson with 19 points.

"The whole game Clark and I dominated and then in the fourth quarter we weren't getting the calls we wanted, things weren't happening and they were taking advantage of our mistakes," McLain said.

The Irish won their tournament opener easily over Whetstone 61-35 on Feb. 25, but the loss seemed to mirror a season which was filled with ups and downs.

Scioto opened 1-3 with three consecutive losses to Worthington Kilbourne (37-32 on Dec. 13), OCC-Cardinal Division-rival Grove City (40-38 on Dec. 16) and Independence (62-58 on Dec. 20).

After that, however, it never lost consecutive games.

"I think their most positive trait this year was they were always able to bounce back," Bisutti said. "We were at the point where we could've cashed it in and thrown in the towel and we didn't. If we had a game next week, I'd be confident that we're going to go out and win it."

Scioto finished 6-4 in the league behind Grove City (9-1) and ahead of Chillicothe (5-5), Olentangy (4-6), Westerville Central (4-6) and Pickerington Central (2-8). Its league losses were to the Greyhounds and Cavaliers. Grove City won the final meeting 68-53 on Feb. 3, and Chillicothe for the first time took two (51-50 on Jan. 13, 63-57 on Feb. 10) from the Irish.

The brightest spots on the schedule likely came over the holiday break when Scioto went to West Virginia for a tournament and defeated Morgantown (W.Va.) 59-54 on Dec. 29 and Parkersburg (W.Va.) South 63-53 on Dec. 30.

It won four in a row in January, with victories over Hilliard Darby (48-40 on Jan. 14), Westerville Central (41-26 on Jan. 20), Olentangy (74-63 on Jan. 27) and Mount Vernon (74-48 on Jan. 28).

"We're probably one player away from taking the next step," Bisutti said. "We just needed one more body that we could rely on. With some of the inexperience on the perimeter it took a while."

The Irish will have a completely different look next season with the departure of Crum, who averaged more than 16 points.

"It's hard for me because I'm not going to be playing organized basketball anymore," said Crum, who was first-team all-league and third-team all-district but will play football at Virginia Tech. "I moved to Dublin Scioto because of coach Bisutti, so it would've been nice to win a championship for him. We made it to three district semifinals and one final. We just couldn't get it over the hump."

McLain was honorable mention all-league.

Scioto expects to return the bulk of its lineup in guards Kelly Winter (6-1 junior), who averaged better than eight points and was named second-team all-league, and Ben Ashwill (6-0 sophomore). Junior Austin O'Connell (6-3) earned plenty of playing time at the post position behind Crum. Junior forwards Michael Eubank (6-1) and Kevin Lolli (6-1) also are expected back.

"We're going to have a small lineup, but hopefully our experience over the past two years will pay off and we'll click," Winter said. "Austin will be our biggest guy and he's played post before so he should be fine down there."