Boys basketball: Northridge, Urbana advance in D-II sectionals

At this point in the season, it doesn’t matter how you advance. It’s all about survival.

Trailing by 10 points in the fourth quarter, the Northridge High School boys basketball team used a suffocating press to beat Graham 59-56 in a Division II sectional first round game at Springfield High School on Friday night.

Northridge is new to the D-II sectional at Springfield this season after being moved up from D-III due to competitive balance adjustments across the area.

The fourth-seeded Polar Bears (15-7) will play third-seeded Kenton Ridge (14-8) at 6 p.m. Tuesday night at Springfield High. The teams have never played in Lisath’s six seasons as head coach, he said.

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“They’re a good basketball team, well-coached,” said Northridge coach Jeff Lisath. “We’re going to have our hands full.”

On the other side of the bracket, Urbana beat Shawnee 64-49. The sixth-seeded Hillclimbers will face off against Central Buckeye Conference Mad River Division rival Benjamin Logan, the regular-season division champions at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday.

The two schools split the regular season series. The Hillclimbers won the most recent meeting, 54-45, on Feb. 15.

“They won our half of the league, so it’s going to be a challenge,” said Urbana coach Jeremy Dixon. “They’re well-rounded. They’ve got several different guys who can score. We’ll start thinking about that (this weekend).”

Northridge 59, Graham 56: The Polar Bears defensive pressure was too much for the Falcons, who had 24 turnovers in the game.

“I thought Graham played extremely well,” Lisath said. “They hit big shots. Every time we made a run, they had an answer. I was hoping by the fourth quarter that we would have them worn down by them. We got some turnovers and hit some big shots that got us going and we were able to pull it out.”

Northridge senior Twon Hines had 24 points for Northridge, including 12 in the fourth quarter. Senior Charles Drewery added 16 points and eight rebounds in the win.

The Polar Bears scored 21 fourth quarter points, including hitting 10-for-14 from the free throw line, to earn the victory. They spent the entire week of practice working on hitting free throws in pressure situations, Lisath said.

“It paid good dividends for us tonight,” he said. “Who knows if that was the key to it or not, but it’s important. In tournament time, you have to hit your free throws.”

Sophomore Brady King had a team-high 17 points and senior Brevan King added 15 points for the Falcons.

The game was tied at 31 at the half. Graham took control early in the third quarter and took a 48-38 lead on a 3-pointer by senior Eli Palmer with 7:15 remaining.

From that point forward, the Polar Bears created havoc on the defensive end, forcing the Falcons into turnovers that became easy buckets. Northridge went on a 15-2 run capped by a 3-pointer by Hines that gave the Polar Bears a 53-51 lead.

Northridge hit six free throws in the final 33 seconds to take a 3-point lead. Brady King’s heave at the buzzer fell short for Graham.

“I thought we were playing well enough to keep the lead,” said Falcons coach Grant Hall. “Basketball is a game of runs. They outran us, I guess.”

The Falcons finished 13-10 in Hall’s first season as head coach.

“The seniors have had four different coaches in four years,” Hall said. “To visualize where we are now and where we started, it’s amazing. These four seniors have upheld our core values and held our guys accountable. … We were in it today, we just couldn’t finish.”

Urbana 64, Shawnee 49: A 22-2 run lifted the Hillclimbers to their second victory of the season against the Braves.

The Hillclimbers led by two at 20-18 late in the second quarter, but went on a 9-0 run to end the period. Urbana extended its lead to 42-20 midway through second half.

“The second and third quarter we played as well as we have all year,” Dixon said. “We played free on offense and locked them down on defense.”

Grant Hower had 18 points for Urbana, while Reid Taylor had 17 and Isaiah Fonseca added 15. With the victory, the Hillclimbers clinched their 11th straight winning season.

“I’d like to keep that streak going,” Dixon said.

Shawnee cut the lead to 11 in the fourth quarter, but couldn’t get any closer. The Braves struggled during the Hillclimbers run and dug themselves too deep of a hole to rebound from, said Braves coach Chris McGuire.

“We just wilted, had a lot of turnovers up top that led to easy baskets and didn’t play aggressive,” McGuire said. “We couldn’t seem to overcome it until we got down 23. I was proud of the guys that they battled back and showed pride to be able to get there. You can’t have a 22-2 stretch in a tournament game and expect to win.”

The Braves finished the season 11-12.

“We had a lot of new pieces this year and we played a tough schedule,” McGuire said. “We had our moments where we looked good and we had moments where we struggled and looked inexperienced. The guys played hard all year for me. It was a pleasure to go to practice every day. It was a great group of guys.”

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