Princeville, Elmwood win postseason openers
over Brimfield. Photo by Collin Fairfield.
By JEFF LAMPE
Weekly Post Staff Writer
PRINCEVILLE – Seedings held up Monday night in the Princeville Class 1A Regional. But the best performance did not go to the highest seed. While the No. 2 seeded Princes eventually pulled away from Stark County in their openinground win, No. 6 Elmwood blasted a Brimfield team it had lost to in the regular season.
Brimfield Coach Scott Carlson twice mentioned “vengeance” in the aftermatch of his team’s lopsided 63-35 loss to the Trojans (23-6). More than just vengeful, though, Elmwood looked much improved from the team that lost 53-52 at home to the Indians (14-14) back on Jan. 7.
Braden McFall (10 points) and Adam Centers (10 points) put on a postpassing display in the early going and then yielded to the explosive scoring of sophomore Andrew Marincic, who racked up a team-high 20 points coming off the bench.
“Adam and Braden have really improved throughout the season,” Elmwood Coach Josh Fugitt said. “Braden is second on our team in assists and maybe first after tonight. He’s really improved that facet of his game from two months ago and definitely from a year ago.”
Marincic also made four of Elmwood’s 10 3-pointers on the night, with the other treys going to Luke Hoffmann (four for 12 points), Eli McKinty (one) and Kody Hightower (one). “You saw guys on our team that wanted to run the floor and get ahead,” Fugitt said. “Heck, Marincic got two or three just running as hard as he could up the court and we found him and he went and finished. When he gets the ball in his hands and has a head of steam, he doesn’t miss much.”
Brimfield struggled mightily on offense against the 6-foot-7 McFall’s inside presence and had to rely on outside shots and off-balance layup attempts.
“We were just back on our heels from the very beginning. It’s the total opposite of last time,” Carlson said. “We threw every defense we had at them. 1-3-1. Matchup worked for awhile, but they figured that out, too. They were just as hot as could be.”
Ashton Johnson led Brimfield with 17 points. In Monday evening’s other game, Princeville’s 26-12 halftime lead nearly disappeared, as Stark County went on a 19-7 run to pull within 33-31 with six minutes remaining. Senior Kane Newton (16 points) helped fuel the run for Stark County with 10 points in the paint while Ryan Murphy (15 points) hit a big 3-pointer to narrow the gap to two points.
Following a timeout after Murphy’s trey, two important things happened for the Princes. First, Joey Smith lofted a running shot in the lane that caught nothing but net. Smith was also fouled on the play and hit the free throw for another of his nine points in the fourth quarter.
“That was not what I designed,” Princeville Coach Jeff Kratzer said, laughing. “As a matter of fact, when he was driving in there, I was like, ‘No, no, no.’ It was one of those no-no-no, yes-yes-yes type of things.”
The other significant happening out of the timeout was something Kratzer
did design. After getting hammered down low, he opted to play both his big
men (Peyton Garcia and Chase Williams) at the same time. After the switch to two post players, the Princes (28-4) allowed just five points to Stark County (6-25).
“The big adjustment was to bring both of our bigs in, which we haven’t done hardly at all this year, if at all,” Kratzer said. “And Chase did a great job. We basically told him, ‘Just go in and muscle up Newton, No. 25.’
(Williams) got some rebounds and made them one-and-done down
the stretch, and that was huge.
“The only other thing we could have done was to go to a 2-3 zone, which
we’ve worked on a just a little bit.”
In Tuesday’s action at Princeville, Peoria Heights upset Kewanee Wethersfield, 49-38. Wethersfield standout Coltin Quagliano, who suffered an ankle injury in the season finale against ROWVAWilliamsfield, played but scored just five points.
In the other game, Peoria Christian defeated North Fulton, 75-68.
That sets up a Wednesday slate pitting, weather permitting, Princeville vs.
Elmwood at 6 p.m. and Peoria Christian vs. Peoria Heights at 7:30. The title
game is scheduled for Friday at 7 p.m.
Princeville
After getting into a position to stake a claim to the Lincoln Trail Conference
regular season title last week, the Princes traveled to Mercer County for a
67-66 overtime loss on Friday.
“Our defense was really bad and our energy was lacking,” Kratzer said.
“You let a team hang around and that’s something that can happen.”
Seth Crawley had 23 points to lead Mercer County while Joey Smith
tallied 26 for the Princes, Carter Johnson added 12 and Cody Thole scored 10.
Afterwards, Kratzer said he mentioned to his team that the Princes had enjoyed 12- and 14-game win streaks this season.
“I told them, ‘Let’s just get on another win streak and have it go right on
through the playoffs to state,” Kratzer said.
Brimfield
Brimfield also ran into some hot shooting in its regular-season finale, a
66-50 loss at Farmington. The Farmers (22-7) made eight 3-pointers: four each by Blake Springer and Ty Anderson.
“The Springer kid, one of their assistants said he’s only hit a handful of
3s all year and he had four in the first half against us,” Carlson said.
The Farmers led 42-24 at halftime and maintainted a lead in the second
half behind 21 points from Anderson, 17 from Springer and 12 from
Corbin Rutledge.
Ashton Johnson and Brett Novak led Brimfield with 12 points apiece and
Camden Kasel added 9.
Elmwood
The Trojans closed the regular season last Friday at home with a 59-40 win
over Havana on Senior Night.
Elmwood came out fast and grabbed a 33-10 halftime lead that included a
basket by injured senior guard Logan Wallace. Wallace, who suffered torn ligaments in the same knee he hurt in last year’s sectional finals, scored an uncontested layup to start the game after Elmwood allowed Havana to score a layup first. Wallace then left the floor to applause.
After that, underclassmen guards took over, with Hoffmann scoring 19 and
Marincic adding 12. Senior McFall scored seven.
ROWVA-Williamsfield
Size often matters in basketball. So it was this year for the Cougars (11-21),
whose lack of size was a major limiting factor in a season that ended Monday in the first round of the Class 1A Galva Regional.
ROWVA-Williamsfield fell to Ridgewood, 61-51, despite 21 points from
Lorin Peterson. That was the fifth straight loss for the Cougars, who lost last Friday’s regular-season finale at Kewanee Wethersfield, 64-56. Quagliano was injured at the end of the first quarter and did not play
again.
“He was in a lot of pain,” R-W Coach Bob Anderson
said.
The 5-9 Peterson had 30 points vs. Wethersfield after he was moved into the post.
“We needed somebody in the high post that could make something happen.
And even though he’s only 5-9, he can make thing happen,” Anderson said.
“That helped our offense, but it hasn’t helped our inside defense or our rebounding, which has killed us.
“We’ve been in games. We’re right there. We just don’t have enough to get
over the hump.”
