GARFIELD HEIGHTS, Ohio — Chalk one up for being battle-tested.
Playing in a game Saturday that could best be described as a matinee — the starting time was moved up to 11 a.m. so the hosts could clear the gym in order to set up for bingo — visiting Lutheran West showed the value of having been there before, earning its fourth consecutive trip to the district level in taking a 44-28 victory over Trinity in a Division III sectional final.
The fifth-seeded Longhorns, 21-3 and champions of the Stripes Division of the Patriot Athletic Conference, next face top seed Elyria Catholic in a district semifinal at 6 p.m. Wednesday at North Ridgeville. Trinity, which was seeded fourth, ends with a 15-7 mark.
“This is our fourth year in a row getting to the district level,” Lutheran West coach Trey Senney said. “That’s when it really starts feeling like the tournament, because you’re not playing on a team’s home court, you’re playing in a neutral gym. We had to play in a real environment here today and handle a lot of yelling and screaming and everything else. It was really good for our girls.”
It was clear right from the start that Lutheran West was more comfortable with the situation. While the Longhorns have a good mix of veterans and youth, Trinity’s rotation includes six freshmen and sophomores, and the youngsters were rattled right from the start.
Without much pressure being applied, the Trojans turned the ball over nine times in the first quarter while falling behind, 13-5. When the game ended the Trojans had nearly as many turnovers (25) as points, giving coach Kevin McNamara an entire host of teachable moments moving forward.
“Lutheran West did a good job,” McNamara said. “They’re a good team and Trey’s a good coach. They’re older than us. That’s no excuse, they whipped our butts. I told the girls, you didn’t lose the game, I lost the game. We needed to be better prepared and that’s my job. We weren’t ready. The 25 turnovers was the inexperience of not throwing the ball where it needed to be and not playing enough basketball to know better.”
One thing that seemed to bother Trinity was the changing defenses employed by Lutheran West. Sometimes man-to-man, sometimes 1-2-2 zone, sometimes 2-3 zone, sometimes trapping, sometimes straight-up. Whatever the defense, the Trojans appeared confused.
“We have a lot of defenses that we work on and try to rotate through,” Senney said. “A lot of it is based on the game plan that we come up with. Today we felt like we were better served to kind of make them shoot and keep them on the outside. They have some athletic guards, so we knew we wanted to keep them on the outside. That’s why we didn’t do as much trapping as we normally do.”
According to McNamara, his team knew exactly what was happening, but the Trojans didn’t react well.
“We knew what they were doing,” he said. “Every play that they ran, we knew it. Every defense, we knew what we were supposed to do. When you’re young, you freeze. You don’t react the same way with the same fluidity as an upperclassman. We had film from everybody. We knew what the defenses were. But we didn’t have the experience of, ‘Hey, here’s X, and I’m supposed to do this.’ Instead, we would freeze and think about it. That’s the youth part of it.”
Despite Trinity’s offensive struggles, the game was still within reach late in the second period. The Longhorns built the lead up to 18-5 midway through the quarter, but Trinity chipped away, and when Maciaha Irving put back an offensive rebound with 23 seconds left until halftime, the margin was cut to a manageable 22-14.
But Lutheran West’s veteran guards, Paris Mather and Larnae Vance, stepped up big with time winding down, both coming up with steals and baskets in the final seven seconds of the half, putting the lead back to 26-14. Whatever momentum the Trojans had was lost, and they never got closer than 10 in the second half.
“At times during the game, the pressure of it being a playoff game really rattled our kids,” Senney said. “But that last minute in the second quarter, they were just calm and collected. We got two steals and two good scoring opportunities that put us up by 12 at halftime, which was a really nice buffer.”
In both instances, Trinity’s inexperience again was the culprit, as the team’s guards wanted to get the ball up court quickly for a final shot at the buzzer. But instead of getting the ball first, they ran away from the rebounders, leaving them exposed to the Longhorns’ pressure.
“I said to my (assistant), if we can cut it to under 10, we’re in a good spot,” McNamara said. “But then they hit the layup and a nice floater by Larnae, and suddenly it’s 12. We went into the locker room and you could just feel it. That was that momentum, right there. And then we started to feel sorry for ourselves.”
Vance led all players with 12 points and Mather added 11. Nina Scaparotti was the lone Trinity player in double figures with 10.
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