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Harding clobbered in district semifinal

Shaker Heights drills Raiders, 77-39

TWINSBURG — Unlike their tournament opener last week when the Warren G. Harding Raiders overcame a sluggish first quarter to beat Hudson, Harding on Wednesday night dug a hole it could never get out of in a 77-39 loss to Shaker Heights in a Division I district semifinal.

“We’ve been kind of streaky all year,” Harding coach Keelyn Franklin said. “Once we see the ball going in, it sometimes opens up and we can’t miss. Tonight just wasn’t that night. They killed us on the offensive boards in that first half.”

Harding (14-10) had decent looks throughout the first half but couldn’t get much of anything to fall, shooting 3-of-11 in the first quarter and 5-of-24 overall in the first half while getting outrebounded 21-11.

Harding had just one player in double figures for the night as D’Muntize Owens scored 12 points.

Still, despite Harding’s shooting woes, it trailed just 17-10 after one quarter of play.

Shaker Heights was led by Danny Young’s 18 points. Shammah Scott added 13.

“We were very concerned about their athleticism and quickness at the guard position,” Shaker Heights coach Danny Young Sr. said. “They are a little undersized, but at this point of the season, it’s a guard’s game. It’s nice to have a big, but when you have guard play like that, it can make it tough on you.

“We focused on bringing the energy, heat and enthusiasm to the defensive side. We wanted great closeouts and contested shots. We had to help each other in the paint. Scramble and help the helper. We really focused on that. We can score the ball, but your defense really needs to be solid.”

The defensive mentality allowed Shaker Heights to open up a double-digit lead as it scored the first nine points of the second quarter for a 26-10 advantage before a Tye Pennington 3-pointers stopped the bleeding momentarily.

After a pair of free throws from Aston Bates got it to 26-15 at the 2:07 mark, Shaker Heights responded with an 8-2 run to make it 34-17 at the half.

“They played physical,” Franklin said. “We had to come out and match that physicality. Instead of setting the tone, we had to match that. By the time we started to do that, we were down 12, we were down 14. Matching their physicality to our athleticism gave us some trouble.”

Despite shooting 14-of-31 in the first half, Young was concerned after seeing the Raiders score 26 against Hudson in the third quarter four days earlier. Harding was 10-of-14 in that eight-minute stretch and 6-of-10 from 3-point distance as the Raiders outscored the Explorers 26-8 in the third quarter on Saturday.

“In the third quarter, bang, bang, bang, bang and they get the lead and win the game,” Young said. “I was very concerned. Sometimes we have flat third quarters. That was a point of emphasis.”

Deja vu didn’t happen, in fact the roles were reversed with Shaker Heights shooting 10-of-19 in the third quarter and holding a lead of 61-33 after three quarters of play.

It was a back-breaker for Harding, which scored the first two points of the quarter and generated some offense but never consistently enough to match Shaker Heights.

“I felt like if we cleaned up the defensive rebounds, and continue to get the looks we got in the first half, and make two or three to put a little pressure on them, I felt we could easily get back into the game,” Franklin said. “We hit one, but we could never get on that streak. We struggled finishing at the rim, which didn’t help either.”

Shaker Heights kept up its defensive prowess in the final quarter, limiting the Raiders to zero field goals and just six points.

“We really tried to engage about no let-up.” Young said. “We wanted them to stay engaged and locked in and work the game plan. It’s never over.”

For Franklin, it was a season of ups and downs but the future looks bright with just three seniors graduating and a strong freshman class moving up.

“It was a lot of highs, a lot of lows,” Franklin said. “I thought we could have made a deeper run. That’s not how the ball bounced today. We’re just going to continue grinding it out.

“We have a decent group coming back next year. Our freshman group is pretty good so we’ll try to groom those guys and get them ready to compete at the varsity level. We’ll be back. We definitely will.”

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