ELK COUNTY CATHOLIC 47, JOHNSONBURG 36
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Feb. 28, 2009 - District 9 Class A Boys' Championship Game
By Chris Rossetti
CLARION – The more things change the more they stay the same.
“(Our kids) certainly expected they would be here,” ECC head coach Aaron Straub said.
“They expected they would be playing for a district championship. That’s all that really matters. We played a
good schedule and beat some really good teams. The most important thing is we started playing our best basketball
when it matters the most. We started out the playoff by beating a very good Venango (Catholic) team with the
leading scorer in the district. Then we beat the Northern Tier champion (
The game was knotted up at 30 with 1:52 to go in the third quarter, but ECC got five straight points from Joe Jacob, including a 3-pointer, to end the quarter with a 35-30 lead.
The Crusaders (19-8) then got that lead to seven, 37-30, two minutes into the fourth quarter before Johnsonburg (21-7) closed to within four, 39-35, with 3:22 to play on a pair of Seth Streich jumpers. But ECC hit 8 of its next 12 free throws to get the lead back into double digits at 47-35 with 40 seconds left.
“I think it came down to the fact that we shot the ball a little bit better than Johnsonburg did,” Straub said. “We made some shots down the stretch, and they really went cold in the second half. That happens. I am proud of the kids for their effort. We beat a really good team.”
Johnsonburg led 14-12 at the end of the first quarter before ECC came back to take a 25-24 halftime lead. The Rams then went out in front 30-27 four minutes into the third quarter before the Crusaders ended the quarter with an 8-0 run that became 10-0 with the Robby Wortman basket with 5:01 to play.
“We really felt like we had a good handle on what we needed to do tonight to be successful,” Straub said. “I felt really good with the plan we put together. We played differently than we did the last couple of games that we played them. Or at least we tried to. The scoreboard didn’t reflect it. But we tried up tempo a little bit, tried to play baseline to baseline and tried to get more things going to the basket.”
ECC used a balanced effort on offense with Wortman scoring 11 points to go with nine rebounds, Higgins adding 10 points and seven boards and Jacob 10 tallies.
“I think if there is one thing about our program, it’s that we try to play some real team basketball,” Straub said. “Tonight, we tried to really spread it out with our minutes and tried to go to our bench really early. It’s a better game if you can spread it out. It’s a better game if you can even out the scoring. Fortunately, we were able to do that. We had some people step up tonight, really we’ve had people step up through the course of the playoffs.”
Streich led Johnsonburg with 11 points and 14 rebounds.
Score by Quarters
Elk
Johnsonburg................... 14 10 6 6 - 36
ELK
WORTMAN, Robby 4-9 3-6 11; JACOB, Joe 3-7 2-2 10; HIGGINS, Nate 4-8 2-4 10; DETSCH, Kyle 1-3
4-6 7; BAUER, Matt 1-2 0-0 3; CHIODO, Tony 1-2 1-3 3; RUPPRECHT, David 0-0 3-4 3; HEALY,
JOHNSONBURG – 36
STREICH, Seth 5-13 1-3 11; PATRICK, Aaron 3-11 0-0 7; HOLMBERG, Joe 2-5 0-0 5; YONKER, Ren 2-11 1-2 5; CARNESSALI, Steve 1-3 2-2 4; SHUEY, Matt 2-5 0-0 4; IMBROGNO, Louis 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 15-48 4-7 36.
Three-pointers – Elk County Catholic 4-5 (JACOB, Joe 2-3; BAUER, Matt 1-1; DETSCH, Kyle 1-1), Johnsonburg 2-10 (PATRICK, Aaron 1-2; HOLMBERG, Joe 1-3; YONKER, Ren 0-3; STREICH, Seth 0-2).
Fouled out--Elk County Catholic-None, Johnsonburg-CARNESSALI, Steve.