Kennedy led by youth in semifinal win over Cornerstone Christian
Eagles will battle Springfield in district championship game
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MINERAL RIDGE -- Youth hasn't been an obstacle for the Kennedy backcourt all season, so why would the tournament be any different?
In both freshman Didi Ryan and sophomore Gianna Pompelia's first appearances on the district stage, the pair did not disappoint, scoring 21 and 25 points respectively in a 53-42 victory over Cornerstone Christian in the Division IV, Mineral Ridge District semifinals on Wednesday.
Heading into the game, Eagles coach Marc Morgan was admittedly a little worried about how his younger girls would handle the adversities of postseason basketball, but for the entire 32 minutes, it felt as if Kennedy was in control. Every Cornerstone run was matched by an Eagles' run in turn.
"My biggest fear was that none of these kids have ever played in this environment and never made it this far, so you have that whole, like, 'How do we do this? What do we do?' You've got to chip through," Morgan said. "Things aren't going our way? What do we got to do to get us a bucket? Having that whole mindset was bothering me because we had never been through it, so hopefully now we know how to do it and it propels us forward. We've got to beat the defending champs."
Now that the initial anxiety is out of the way, it's about maximizing those young players.
"I mean, I've said it before, the ceiling is ridiculous," Morgan said. "(Ryan) and (Pompelia) were just absolutely insane. That's what it comes down to. It's about making baskets and making plays. If you've got equivalent teams, who can do it? And that's what it really comes down to. It's not 'Who's supposed to do it?' It's 'Who can?' And I really thought those two showed up for us."
Right before the postseason started, Kennedy got its wake-up call. In the regular season finale against league rival Rootstown, the Eagles suffered an uncharacteristic 62-29 loss.
Since Kennedy took its medicine however, things have been much different.
"When we played Rootstown, we absolutely got a hammer to us, and it was like a real reset," Morgan said. "We've got to get back in there and start doing the little things. Doing what we do well, working on that. That whole Rootstown game was a turnaround. It really showed us, 'Hey, maybe we need to do a little more work to get what we want. I'm not going to just show up and win these games because we're better, we've got to do what we need to do.' I think that's been the big stepping stone for us."
The stage is set for a battle of titans on Saturday. A Springfield team that's made some deep postseason runs in the very recent past against a Kennedy team that doesn't let a big stage scare them.
If the Eagles can play with the same resolve they showed against Cornerstone Christian, Morgan likes those odds.
"Can we play the game that we played today? We've got to be able to do that," Morgan said. "Obviously, we've got to get other people involved against a team of that magnitude. We've got to be able to stop them on the inside and then hopefully our defense will lead us through."
Start time against the Tigers is set for 7 p.m.
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