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LaBrae overcomes Berkshire rally to stay undefeated

Tribune Chronicle / Joe Simon LaBrae’s Aaron Iler (3) starts to drive against Berkshire defender Joe Bennington, as Aaron Pawlak (14) watches during the Vikings’ 62-44 win over the Badgers Monday night at Warren G. Harding High School. The game was a Division III district semifinal.

WARREN — There are times when LaBrae coach Chad Kiser believes it’s good to play in a close game, when the pressure is on and the tension is high.

Actually, there is just one specific time Kiser likes it.

“If you come out on the winning end, it’s nice,” Kiser said with a laugh.

He and the top-ranked Vikings were able to smile and laugh afterward, but it wasn’t all fun and games for LaBrae in a 62-44 Division III Warren district semifinal victory over Berkshire.

The Vikings, now 24-0 and ranked No. 1 in the Division III AP state poll, trailed 39-38 for a short time in the fourth quarter. The Badgers (13-12) were on a 21-9 run through the first 9 minutes of the second half and had all the momentum early in the fourth quarter. What they didn’t have was energy.

Tribune Chronicle / Joe Simon Carlton Brown, left, of LaBrae looks for an open teammate as Berkshire’s Ryan Johnson defends Monday night at Warren G. Harding High School.

LaBrae, which plays the winner of tonight’s Champion-Garfield game for the district title on Friday, used a press defense that wore down Berkshire. The hounding defense, coupled with the Badgers having to expend their energy to rally from a 16-point first-half deficit, led to Berkshire running out of steam. The Vikings, on the other hand, finished with a flurry, ending the game on a 24-5 run to survive a scare for the district’s top seed.

“We were able to scrap and start making shots, especially coming out of halftime,” Berkshire coach Keith Clapacs said. “Ultimately we just ran out of gas. When your margin for error is that small, and you’re playing from behind against a good team, you have a dropped pass, a missed bunny — stuff you make in the driveway as a kid before you ever get to this stage.”

The biggest difference for the Vikings was Chad’s son, Logan Kiser. He scored a game-high 21 points, grabbed seven rebounds and was a force on the inside. That was especially important because Berkshire slowed the game down, and the Vikings weren’t as aggressive with their press defense and up-tempo style because three players were nursing injuries from their previous game against Mineral Ridge. Logan Kiser came through with critical field goals to swing the momentum back in LaBrae’s favor on several occasions.

“I feel like we had a little bit of nerves, but after a while we settled in and played our game,” said Logan Kiser, who scored nine points in the decisive fourth quarter. “We just stuck to our gameplan.”

Helping Kiser close things out was Carlton Brown, another player who showed a lot of energy late in the game. He scored nine of his 13 points in the fourth, including making 5-of-6 free throws. He said he could tell the Vikings needed a spark with their season on the line.

Tribune Chronicle / Joe Simon LaBrae's Logan Kiser, left, makes a move past a Berkshire defender Monday night.

“Coach always tells us, as captains we have to take control of the game when we’re in a tough situation,” Brown said. “So that’s what I tried to do. I just tried to get my team back into the game — do some little hustle things to get us back in the lead and get our confidence back up.”

Berkshire’s big run came when several players got hot in the third quarter, but Emil Hess was the main catalyst with 19 points, including five 3-pointers. The Badgers shot 8-of-15 (53 percent) in the third but just 10-of-39 (26 percent) in the other three quarters. Hess also picked up his fourth foul in the fourth quarter, which was one of the few times he came off the court.

“We finished well because we executed,” Chad Kiser said. “We were able to rest guys throughout and they weren’t. They were playing six, seven guys tops. Hess and (Ryan) Johnson didn’t come out until the fourth quarter. I thought out bench did really well in the first half, and we rested enough in the first half that it showed in the fourth quarter. We had a little more legs.”

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