Behind crisp cuts, Waterloo avenges heartbreaker, tops Rootstown
ROOTSTOWN — The crisp cuts were sweet.
The revenge was even sweeter for the Vikings.
After Rootstown handed Waterloo one of its most heartbreaking losses of the year last season, the Vikings bounced back with a 58-42 victory over the host Rovers in Friday night's non-conference showdown.
"Coming into this game, we were thinking about last year," Vikings senior guard Navarre Alhassan said. "I mean we ended up blowing a big lead, came down, I ended up missing that layup, so I had a lot of hard feelings coming into this game, so I really just wanted to get it back, play together and win the game, and that's what we did."
Sometimes, stats are misleading.
Sometimes, they tell the story remarkably well.
Friday was an example of the latter.
The Vikings (2-1) finished the night with incredibly balanced scoring, with four players between 10 and 15 points: senior Anthony Podojil (15), junior Drew Flarida (14), senior Navarre Alhassan (13) and senior Ryan Wise (10).
Which made sense, given the way Waterloo selflessly dished the ball all night, frequently eschewing 3-pointers for crisp cuts and layups.
"For us to be successful, we've got to have seven, eight, nine guys score the basketball," Vikings coach Jason Wise said. "We got production from guys tonight that it's got to happen every night. We've got to be balanced. We can't have one guy get 30 and then the rest of the team gets you 20. We've got to be balanced."
The Vikings also finished with 23 more shots than the Rovers, due largely to the fact that their press and hounding defense forced the home team into 25 turnovers.
"The biggest thing, especially in the first half, was just taking care of the ball, and it seemed like every time we turned it over or made a mistake, they capitalized off of it like a good team does," Rootstown coach Cody Calhoun said. "At halftime, we had 16 turnovers and had only taken 15 shots, and of the 15, we were shooting about 45 percent in the first half, so we were all right percentage-wise. We just need to get some more attempts, take better care of the ball, rebound a little better."
Drew Flarida, Waterloo make big run to end first half
Though the Vikings played with frenetic energy and stellar off-ball movement from the start, the Rovers, thanks in part to Brady Fillmore making four of his first five shots for 10 first-half points, were still within three (21-18) midway through the second quarter.
Waterloo ran away with a 14-1 run.
The Vikings' 9-1 run to close the first half started with something unusual, a 3-pointer, as all of their cuts to the basket early seemed to open up space for Alhassan to drain an open 3 to double the team's lead to six.
Less than a minute later, Flarida, an able passer in the paint all night long, whipped a pass to junior Jackson Eichler for a layup, and soon after found junior Kyle Werbeck for a floater. Flarida fittingly capped the half with a putback to push the Vikings' halftime lead to 11.
"He's always hustling," Alhassan said. "That's his job. He loves doing it and we love having him do it."
Waterloo wasn't done.
The Vikings started the second half in stellar fashion, as Alhassan drew a charge on the defensive end, and they moved the ball wonderfully on the offensive side, with Eichler swinging the ball to Alhassan, who found Podojil from the right side for a 3-pointer and a 33-19 edge.
"Every game. I'm always trying to get my teammates involved and that'll help get myself involved," Alhassan said. "When I'm creating for other guys, it'll help open up my game as well, and we're always trying to look to get everyone involved."
Seconds later, Wise picked out a steal, and when he missed the fast-break layup, Flarida was there, as he seemingly was all night, for the trailer layup and a 35-19 advantage.
The Vikings led comfortably the rest of the night, by as many as 24 (54-30 in the fourth), though the Rovers had a couple of highlights late.
Down 43-24 and held without a field goal through the first seven minutes of the third, Rootstown cashed in on back-to-back 3-pointers to end the period, one apiece by juniors Ryan Piscitani (9 points) and Kyle Weese.
"He played well and we ask a lot of him, offensively and defensively," Calhoun said of Piscitani. "He's still working back, I mean coming from taking a whole year off from playing from his knee injury, and he's still getting into the swing of things and getting it readjusted to the speed of the game and having to play kind of some different positions and guard a lot of different guys."
The Rovers ended the night on a 7-0 run, including a slick swish from the elbow by Weese and a pair of assists by junior guard Joe Weaver to Landon Rodstrom and Colby Scott.
"The biggest thing is we just got to clean up some of our mental mistakes that we've been making for too long now," Calhoun said. "I know we're a young team, but when we're still making some of the same mistakes, and with our margin for error being smaller, it feels like one mistake is about four mistakes and teams really capitalize off of that."
This article originally appeared on Record-Courier: Waterloo basketball avenges heartbreaker, tops Rootstown
