Dublin Scioto snaps Athens' four-game win streak
Posted: Saturday, December 31, 2011 2:27 am
Dublin Scioto snaps Athens' four-game win streak
By ANDY CRAWFORD Messenger Contributor The Athens Messenger
DUBLIN - More like the Harassin' Irish.
The Athens boys basketball team took the 125-mile trip up Rt. 33 last night and ended up on Hard Road at Dublin Scioto High School, but thanks to the Fightin Irish and their brand of in-your-face man-to-man defense, the Bulldogs may as well have been on Difficult Drive or, for that matter, Impossible Boulevard.
By the time it was over, coach Jeff Skinner and his team boarded the bus for the long trip home as victims of a 69-29 blowout.
"They just overwhelmed us" said Skinner. "They're all around 6'2" and have tremendous quickness and tremendous strength. They're also gifted, to a man, with some great offensive moves. You just can't simulate their kind of quickness and defensive pressure in practice."
The Irish didn't do anything fancy - no exotic press, half-court trap or match-up zone. What they were able to do, however, was to force the Bulldogs (5-3) into nineteen first-half turnovers and to hold them without a field goal for nearly an entire quarter on not one, but on two separate occasions.
As bad as things were for the visitors, it could have been worse had it not been for their fast start. Athens began by opening up an 8-2 lead in the game's first three minutes, courtesy of two 3-point baskets by Josh Skinner and a twisting 5-foot bank shot by Ryan Luehrman that finished off his one-man fast break. The Bulldogs' game plan of spreading the floor, patiently waiting for the open jumper, controlling the boards and running when the opportunity presented itself appeared to be working perfectly.
That's when the quick hands of Scioto's Dominic Madison changed the game.
First, the diminutive Madison began shadowing whoever was bringing the ball up the floor for the Bulldogs, most often Skinner. Once the entry pass was made to the wing, Madison switched to a lurking mode, waiting for the player with the ball to turn his back. Once he did, Madison would take one step and reach for the ball. If he missed, he could still recover and re-establish his defensive position on Skinner. If he didn't miss, an Irish transition opportunity would follow.
For the next seven minutes or so, Madison didn't miss very often.
His first steal led to teammate Travis Yates' triple from the top of the arc that pulled the Irish to within 8-5. On his second, he poked the ball away, caught it and turned in mid-air, hitting a streaking Josh Ashwill perfectly in stride for the easy lay-in. Madison took the ball in himself after his third pick, but on his team's next time down the floor, he drove the lane and kicked the ball out to Grant Anderson in the left corner for a 3-pointer that gave Scioto a commanding 18-8 lead with 6:12 remaining in the first half.
Jared Elmore finally snapped the Bulldogs' seven-minute-plus scoring drought by collecting a Skinner miss and putting it back in, and then he and Joey Burrow teamed up on a textbook inside-outside maneuver, with Burrow feeding the ball underneath to Elmore and the big man giving it right back to Burrow for the 3-point basket that temporarily narrowed the Irish lead to 20-13.
But Scioto took the gauntlet that Burrow had thrown down and picked it up again - twice, with Ryan Duncan and Yates connecting on back-to-back shots from behind the arc.
Athens, meanwhile, was completely stymied on consecutive possessions, first failing to get the ball across mid-court in the allotted ten seconds and then failing to get the pass inbounds in the required five.
"They did a real good job of hurrying us," said Skinner. "Not so much with their running game, but with their defense. They made us rush through our offensive sets. At halftime, we spent a lot of time talking about how we could slow the game down and concentrate on taking care of the fundamentals."
The coach's conversation seemed to have an effect. His team committed just two turnovers in the third quarter, and the second half got off to a pretty good start when the younger Skinner pulled up on the left wing and hit his third 3-pointer of the contest. The shot was set up by a steal by Luehrman, who turned the tables on the Irish by picking Madison's pocket for once and initializing a fast break.
Unfortunately for the Bulldogs, Skinner's basket was the last time they would score at least two points on a trip down the floor for over 10 minutes, and that's when the home team put the game out of reach. The Irish;s most devastating possession occurred with 3:45 remaining in the quarter, when Madison, after sinking the first of two free throws, missed the second, but teammate Antonio Bisutti powered in and ripped away the rebound. When Bisutti's putback attempt also went awry, it was Madison's turn to sneak in and steal the loose ball, and his second attempt did find the bottom of the net. Suddenly, Scioto had secured a 37-18 advantage.
Up until that point in the game, Athens had managed to keep the rebounding margin respectable, but when that aspect began to tilt in favor of the Irish as the second half progressed, that's when the enormity of their task seemed to settle into the minds of the Bulldogs.
Scioto rather quietly finished the game with a 23-13 superiority on the glass.
"They had just played a tough game against Walnut Ridge last night and had gotten beaten pretty badly," said Skinner. "They obviously came into tonight feeling like they had something to prove. And, here we were, driving 100 miles to get here, and we just had the bad fortune of being next on their schedule.
"We play difficult competition," he continued. "We'll play anybody at any time, and we're not going to duck people. We look at games like this as a way of testing ourselves, of finding out what we're made of. We treat games like this as great practice. When we face this kind of a team that can bring this kind of pressure, it's only going to make us better."
Dublin Scioto 69, Athens 29
Athens 8 7 6 8 - 29
Dublin Scioto 11 20 14 24 - 69
ATHENS (5-3)
Nick Stanley 0 0-0 0, Ryan Luehrman 3 0-1 6, Josh Skinner 3 2-4 11, Josh Maxson 0 0-0 0, Joey Burrow 1 1-2 4, Kramer Simmons 2 1-2 6, Michael Germano 0 0-0 0, Jared Elmore 1 0-0 2; TOTALS 10 4-9 29; 3-pt field goals: 5 (Skinner 3, Simmons 1, Burrow 1).
DUBLIN SCIOTO
Dominic Madison 3 4-6 10, Josh Ashwill 3 0-0 8, Ryan Duncan 2 0-0 5, Travis Yates 4 0-0 10, Antonio Bisutti 2 2-4 7, Grant Anderson 4 4-4 14, Gabe McGlone 4 0-2 8, Kalib Wallace 1 0-0 2, Travis Wehder 2 0-0 4, Aaron Strausbaugh 0 1-2 1; TOTALS 25 11-18 69; 3-pt field goals: 8 (Anderson 2, Ashwill 2, Yates 2, Duncan 1, Bisutti 1).
TEAM STAISTICS/INDIVIDUAL LEADERS
Field goals - Athens 10-28 (.359), Dublin Scioto 25-42 (.595); 3-pt field goals - Athens 5-11 (.455), Dublin Scioto 8-16 (.500); Free throws - Athens 4-9 (.444), Dublin Scioto 11-18 (.611); Rebounds - Athens 13 (Luehrman 3, Burrow 3), Dublin Scioto 23 (Bisutti 6); Assists - Athens 4 (Stanley 1, Luehrman 1, Burrow 1, Elmore 1), Dublin Scioto 22 (Madison 5); Steals - Athens 7 (Luehrman 3), Dublin Scioto 12 (Madison 3, Ashwill 3); Turnovers - Athens 28, Dublin Scioto 11; Blocks - Athens 4 (Maxson 2), Dublin Scioto 1 (Yates 1); Total fouls - Athens 12, Dublin Scioto 13; Junior varsity score - Dublin Scioto 47-18.