WCAC Semis Don’t Disappoint
Ron Bailey, Publisher
(Page 2)
Playing his team at 8:00pm Monday on the same court is Bishop O’Connell (25-5), who earned the chance via a 55-49 come from behind victory over DeMatha (20-10) in the tourney’s nightcap. Leading the Knight’s charge was Jason Clark with 16 points, all of which were needed given their 22-6 early second half deficit.
“To their credit, they were able to come out and hit us in the face” remarked O’Connell’s coach, Joe Wootten, “And I’m happy we were able to cut it to nine (the deficit by halftime). I told the kids let’s not try and come back all at once”.
Clark (right), was the focus of serious DeMatha defensive focus. He also sprained his ankle in the first quarter.
“We didn’t come out strong, and we’ve been down a lot in this season” said Clark of his team’s mindset when behind. Being the team’s leader and most experienced player, Jason didn’t get discouraged, as despite being down by such a large amount he said to himself “the game is not over, anything can happen now”.
Switching to a ‘five-out’ offensive scheme jumpstarted the Knight’s offense, creating driving and cutting opportunities for Clark and sophomore Kendall Marshall (11 points), as well as perimeter looks for junior Dave Eismeir (10 points).
According to Wootten, so did the overall gritty play of junior Devon Cole (five points), a diminutive guard who doesn’t back down. “I thought Devon Cole changed the game, just pushing the ball to the rim. He was fearless” opined the coach. Per Cole, the seeds of his gutsy play were planted last week, as he shared “Basically, it started Monday, when Joe challenged me…I think that prepared me for this game”.
Clark and Wootten also felt the approximately four minutes early in the second half O’Connell employed a zone defense slowed DeMatha down, forcing them to become more methodical, but the Stag’s head man, Mike Jones, disagreed slightly.
“It started in the second half, they outscored us 11-4, basically in the last two minutes” recalled Jones of O’Connell’s comeback. “And they weren’t playing zone then”.
“We stopped doing the things we were doing before” continued Jones. “We were playing way too tentative…They kept at it”.
Leading the Stags in scoring were junior Najee Hibbert (14 points) and senior Kenny Tate (11 points). Does Jones feel any solace that standouts such as sophomore Josh Selby (9 points) and junior Marcus Rouse (8 points) return to a DeMatha team that will surely contend for the title next year?
“It doesn’t make you feel any better now” shared Jones of his team’s future prospects. “Hopefully something like this is something we can use for motivation, but we have to go back and put in all the work in the spring, summer and fall…Obviously as a coach at DeMatha High School, this is unacceptable”.
(For pictures and memorabilia pertaining to O’Connell vs. DeMatha,
be sure to go to http://starghill.exposuremanager.com/g/demathaoconnell
for Michael Starghill’s excellent photograph-based work).