High School Sports

Western Reserve ousts McDonald

MCDONALD -- For the third time this season, the McDonald and Western Reserve boys basketball teams met on the hardwood, and despite a furious second-half surge, McDonald fell for the third time in less than two months to its conference rival 40-36.

After a 9-0 McDonald run and a buzzer-beating Casey Miller three-pointer to end the third quarter, Reserve re-took the lead within the first 20 seconds of the fourth and did not let McDonald get back in front the rest of the game, closing out the road victory to advance to the Division IV, Northeast 2 district tournament.

The win marks Reserve's third victory in 2024 over McDonald, a fact not lost on Western Reserve head coach Joe Serensky.

"I had to listen to that all week, 'You can't beat the same team three times,' and I had to tell 'em, 'Well, look, we beat them five times in a row, so I don't want to hear about three no more," Serensky said.

Josh Klasic scored Reserve's first seven points, fueling his team's 7-1 run to begin the game. On the other end, McDonald nearly went the entire quarter without a field goal; Chris Ragazzine hit a deep three in the period's final minute to record McDonald's first basket of the game.

McDonald's offense showed some life in the second quarter, in large part due to Drew Zajack, who scored the first eight of McDonald's 10 points in the second to keep the deficit at five going into halftime. Zajack finished the game with a game-high 20 points.

In the second half, McDonald fell behind by seven before igniting the home crowd with nine unanswered points, which put McDonald in front with the lead for the first time all game. Reserve managed to respond with four straight to take back the lead, only for Miller to drain a three in front of his own bench as time expired in the quarter.

Klasic opened up the scoring in the fourth to give Reserve the lead it had held for nearly the entire game to that point. The teams each found success on the offensive end for the first half of the fourth, but after a pair of Brock Wellman free throws, both offenses went cold in the final four minutes.

In the final 4:27 of the game, neither team made a field goal and only one combined point was scored. Reserve, which had a three-point lead after Wellman's free throws, benefited greatly from McDonald's offense failing to score in the final five minutes.

As the buzzer sounded, making Reserve's sectional victory official, Serensky jumped in the air and pumped his fist in celebration.

Serensky said winning on McDonald's home floor twice this season made the playoff win extra special.

"It's crazy, especially being at McDonald -- they're one of our rivals," Serensky said. "It's a hard place to win, a hard place to shoot. And we did it twice this year. So these guys know that they can handle a tough task."

Dom Ricciardi, whose foul shot in the final 30 seconds gave Reserve the four-point lead it finished with, reflected on how meaningful of a win Friday's victory was.

"WKBN game of the week. conference game, sectional finals, been a while since we've been in the district -- it meant the world to us," Ricciardi said.

McDonald head coach James Franceschelli, who admitted Reserve was "tougher" Friday, gave no excuses for dropping a third game to Reserve this season.

"They got us three times this year. They had our number. Obviously, it was just a bad matchup for us," Franceschelli said. "It's hard to put into words. We really feel like we had a good plan, and they just take us out of everything that we wanted to do there."

After the season-ending loss, Franceschelli praised his team, which only featured one senior. He said the future is "bright" and said it will be the responsibility of the players to determine how big of a leap the team makes next season.

Reserve's season continues in the district tournament, where it will play fourth-seeded Richmond Heights in the semifinal at 6 p.m. Monday at Firestone in Akron.

Serensky is well aware of the challenge Richmond Heights, which defeated Medina Christian 92-32 on Friday, presents.

"They're the best team in Ohio. They're nationally ranked. So we're just gonna go in there and try our best and throw up some shots and hopefully it goes in," Serensky said.

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