SECOND TIME THROUGH MEANS TOUGH GAMES

Its crunch time for all the teams in the Ohio Capital Conference Cardinal Division because Friday night begins the second round of league play.

High school basketball followers in Central Ohio generally agree that the OCC is a coaches league. At this point in the season all teams have seen each other at least once and have plenty of film and scouting reports to help them prepare every time out.

There is a greater sense of urgency as well, because the Central District Tournament seeding meeting will take place in less than three weeks. Teams are jockeying for position in league play and attempting to earn as favorable a seed as possible.

With that in mind, the Irish will host the Olentangy Braves on January 23. The teams met in Olentangy’s season opener and both teams’ league opener on December 9. The Irish came away with a hard fought 73-59 victory.

In that game the Irish built a 20 point second half lead, but saw the Braves go on an 11-0 run to cut the lead to 49-40 late in the third quarter. Scioto responded with a 7-0 run to extend the lead to 56-40 and were never headed.

The Braves are led by senior sharpshooter Mitchell Girberd who is averaging about 15 points a game and has nailed 33 treys on the season. Sharing in the scoring load for the Braves are Alex Tracy (11 ppg), Dayjon Baugh (8 ppg), Raphael Carter-Nowling (8 ppg) and Matt Huter (8 ppg). After the loss to Scioto they ripped off five consecutive wins, but are trying to find themselves following three consecutive losses. They are 6-5 overall and 3-4 in the Cardinal Division.

Scioto comes into this game on an 8 winning streak. The Irish are 11-1 overall and 7-0 in league play.

The freshman game is scheduled to begin at 4:30 p.m. The JV game is expected to tip at around 6 p.m. and the varsity game at 7:30 p.m.