by Joe Magill
KIRTLAND—In many ways, Friday’s Division III sectional final between host Kirtland and Beachwood was a game of opposites.
While the Hornets have 10 seniors on the roster and go 12 deep, Beachwood only has a seven-man rotation. Kirtland’s scoring is very balanced, while the Bison depend greatly on two players—Northeast Lakes District Player of the Year Jayson Woodrich and Jimmie Mitchell.
In addition, both teams are in the Chagrin Valley Conference, but they play in opposite divisions, with Beachwood in the Chagrin Division and Kirtland in the Valley Division.
But the most important opposite was that it was a matchup of teams headed in opposite directions. While the Hornets appear to be on top of their game, Beachwood limped to the finish line.
Seann McGill scored 17 points and added 13 rebounds and three blocks to lead host Kirtland to a 71-52 victory over Beachwood. The Hornets, 16-7, will face top-seeded Lutheran East at 7 p.m. Monday in a district semifinal at Garfield Heights High School. McGill was backed by Adam Mueller with 14 points, Zach Samsa with 11 and Dominic Capretta with 10.
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“I would say this clearly was our best game of the season,” Kirtland coach Shawn McGregor said. “We’ve had good moments during games, but this was our best game from start to finish. I’m proud of the way the kids came out and competed and executed.”
Just last week, Beachwood, which finished at 13-10, was playing at Harvey, and a victory would have meant a share of the Chagrin Valley Conference Chagrin Division championship.
Instead, the Bison lost, 44-36.
“We played, I thought, our best basketball of the entire month leading up to last week,” Beachwood coach Matt Miller said. “It’s terrible timing to have our worst two games at the end. But you have to give a ton of credit to Kirtland. They completely outplayed us. You can tell they have state champions over there. They worked hard, they played hard, they were smart, they executed, they took care of business.”
Ah, yes. State champions. Anytime Kirtland athletics is the topic, the success of the football program obviously must be mentioned. Several members of the basketball team played football, and there definitely is a carryover effect.
“They know how to compete, there’s no doubt about it,” McGregor said. “With 10 seniors on the team, they’ve been competing all their lives together. They’re a family group and they just play hard. They know how to win, and they do the right things. They were excellent tonight. They played hard, they executed. We did the things we needed to do.”
Woodrich, who averaged 26.7 points per game in the regular season, struggled to score 14 against Harvey, his season-low. Against Kirtland he scored 22, but 10 of them came after the outcome already was determined.
Kirtland face-guarded the 6-foot-5 senior, using four different players to defend him—another example of Kirtland’s impressive depth. Samsa covered Woodrich more than any of his teammates, but Connor Gron, Andrew DeMarco and Dawson Cosgrove also took their shot at the daunting assignment.
“We were trying to do our best on him,” McGregor said. “He’s a heck of a player. When you face the player of the year you’ve got to come up with something. We had four different guys who were face-guarding, most of them were bigger bodies. These guys know how to compete. And when you challenge them, they don’t crawl into a hole. They compete and they want to play well for each other.”
The effect on Woodrich was apparent right from the start. He only scored four points in each of the first three quarters before exploding for 10 in the final 4:49, including two breakaway dunks after steals.
“These are the shots he’s been getting the entire season because he’s been guarded that way all season,” Miller said. “Up until last week they were going in for him, but this is a bad stretch for him. Unfortunately, it came at this time, but he didn’t have a bad game the entire season. Last week and this week are probably the worst that he had, but that’s the way it goes sometimes. He’s had an unbelievable season.”
The game was close in the first quarter, which ended with Kirtland on top, 18-15. After Woodrich hit a floater from the left baseline to bring the Bison to within one, the Hornets went on an 8-0 run to open a 26-17 advantage. All four of Kirtland’s baskets were on hustle plays, either offensive rebounds or fast break layups. The half ended with Kirtland holding a 32-24 lead, but a trend had been set that would continue in the second half—the Hornets had a huge advantage in the hustle plays.
“It was definitely effort on their part,” Miller said. “Those guys are state champions over there and they brought that intensity and that effort here. It’s disappointing that we didn’t bring that intensity today. I’m not quite sure why, but it definitely is disappointing that it ended this way.”
Kirtland broke open the game in the third quarter, which ended with the Hornets holding a comfortable 53-37 advantage. It was a quarter that saw seven different players score for Kirtland, which, led by McGill, continued to dominate the offensive glass.
“Tournament time is all about 50-50 plays and playing your role,” McGregor said. “We have big guys who are athletic, and they did a good job of crashing the boards and giving us second-chance and third-chance points.”
Kirtland appeared almost to be on cruise control in the fourth quarter, especially after building the lead to 61-40 at the 5:14 mark. With Woodrich scoring 10 consecutive points, Beachwood got as close as 11, 63-52, with 3:04 to play. But the seven-man rotation caught up with the Bison, who ran out of gas at the end and didn’t score for the remainder of the game.
“If you would have told me at the beginning of the year that we would be playing the last conference game with a chance to win the league, I would have taken it,” Miller said. “They found a way to play with those seven guys. Pressing is not something that we wanted to do because of our numbers. But we had to when we fell behind. It ended up costing us down the stretch because we ran out of legs. Shawn was able to keep his guys fresh, rotate them in and take care of business.”
Mitchell backed Woodrich with 18 points, but only two came in the fourth period. Antoine Whitsett was next for Beachwood with eight points.
Kirtland 71, Beachwood 52
Kirtland (16-7): Capretta 8, Mueller 14, Cosgrove 4, Powers 6, Samsa 11, Bottesch 2, Camino 3, McGill 17, Bailey 6
Beachwood (13-10): Hardin 4, Whitsett 8, Woodrich 22, Mitchell 18
Beachwood 15 9 13 15 — 52
Kirtland 18 14 21 18 — 71
Free throws: Kirtland 15 of 21, Beachwood 16 of 30; 3-pointers: Kirtland 3 (Mueller 3), Beachwood 2 (Woodrich, Mitchell); Rebounds: Kirtland (McGill 13)
