By Pete Chiodo
ERIE — Conneaut Valley, welcome to the traffic jam.
Visiting Villa Maria on Friday night, the Indians were yanked out of the top spot in the Region 3 standings after giving up 50 second-half points in a 65-62 loss to the Victors.
Now there are four teams at 9-3 in the league — Villa, Valley, Linesville and Cambridge Springs.
These last couple weeks are going to be interesting, indeed.
“Big game,” said Villa coach Joe Lunger, whose team owns the best overall record in the region at 14-4. “We came out so excited. But we were maybe too excited.”
His Victors fell behind early, making just 2 of 12 buckets in the first quarter. Meanwhile, for Valley, Casey Baker scored four points, dished two underneath to Darrin Hyde for four more points, and Jimmy Haworth knocked down a 3-pointer to put the Indians up 11-5 after one period of play.
“We were making bad passes, missing open lay-ups,” Lunger said.
Valley’s lead grew to 15-5 early in the second quarter. Hyde had the markers with another pair of layups.
But it was at this point— with 5:48 remaining — that Baker, the centerpiece of Valley’s team, was hit with his third personal foul and spent the rest of the period on the bench.
Still, the remaining Valley squad looked like it was going to hang onto the lead, maybe even make it bigger. With about 2:30 to play in the second, and the Tribe leading 16-7, Villa’s Ryan Dirkmaat was hit with a shooting foul, then a technical. If all went well, Valley was looking at a potential 15-point lead.
However, the Indians only made two of the four freebies, and then turned over the possession after the technical. They still led 18-7. But that didn’t last as Villa went on an 8-0 run over the final two minutes of the second quarter, making it 18-15 at the half.
The momentum shifted, and Villa focused on hanging onto it.
“We had to calm them down at halftime,” said Lunger. “We talked about taking our time to get back in it. We told them, ‘This is not a race.’ And that’s what, I think, made the difference in the second half.”
And what a difference it made.
Villa rolled in the third quarter, outscoring Valley 26-9.
Joe Galleher led the way for the Victors with 12 points in the quarter, making some nice drives to the bucket. Eric Sorenson followed up with six more.
The Victors were ahead 41-27 going into the fourth.
Both offenses let loose in the final frame. Conneaut Valley scored 25, Villa had 24. Yet, Valley could never cut too deeply into Villa’s lead. The closest the Indians got was seven points (57-50) with under 50 seconds to play in the game.
Valley was forced to put Villa at the foul line. The Indians had that technique down pat by this point. They were plagued with fouls. Villa attempted 42 free throws in the contest, making 26. And by the end of the game, Haworth was on the bench with five fouls, Frank Field had five, Justin Smith had five, and Baker had been playing with four fouls since the 1:23 mark of the third quarter.
“The foul trouble our team suffered really hurt our chances of playing our normal style of basketball,” said Valley’s assistant coach Scott Palotas. “We couldn’t be as aggressive as we wanted on ‘D,’ and that hurt us.
“And we didn’t play very well. We didn’t shoot the ball well. We missed a bunch of open shots. Our jump shooting hurt us as well as the fouls.”
Baker led the Indians with 19 points. Hyde finished with 11. Nolan Varee and Field both scored eight.
Villa, meanwhile, had four players in double digits. Galleher had a game-best 22 points. Adam Miller tallied 10 points in the fourth quarter and finished with 14. Sorenson scored 12 points and Nick Gianelli had 11.
“We executed well on offense in the second half,” said Lunger. “We know that Casey Baker is going to score 20 points no matter what we do. But we have three or four other guys that have to win their battles and that’s what they did.”
Pete Chiodo can be reached at 724-6370 ext. 275 or by e-mail at pchiodo@meadvilletribune.com.
