Streetsboro boys basketball shakes off sluggish start to storm past Field

STREETSBORO — The opening minutes were a disaster for the Rockets.

Streetsboro couldn't hit a shot and Field star Joe Crawford scored his first seven points in a flash.

The consolation for the Rockets was that despite their dreary start, their deficit was only nine.

Turning up the energy with defense and drives, Streetsboro erased that early deficit with a 24-3 run, topping visiting Field, 64-41, Friday.

"In that timeout, we're like, 'We played horrible and we're only down nine,'" Rockets sophomore guard Charles Ivory said. "Let's go out there and go take a win."

"I didn't even realize we were down nine," senior guard Colby Benjamin added. "I thought we were down more."

As Benjamin hinted, it felt like the Rockets (6-11, 6-5 Metro Athletic Conference) were down more given the way they looked at the start.

All of which made Friday's halftime score (33-21 Streetsboro) and final margin (a 23-point win for the Rockets) rather jarring.

Streetsboro shakes off brutal start

The opening minutes belonged to the Falcons.

There's no question about that.

Field turned an early 3-2 deficit into an 8-3 lead on a pair of 3-pointers from sophomore Brayden Ronowski and Crawford (16 points).

Then came a far-too-easy driving layup for Crawford off a sideline inbound and speedy sophomore Grady Eader (8 points, 3-of-7 FG) beat Streetsboro down the court for a layup and a 12-3 lead midway through the first.

The Rockets, to that point, had a single field goal (a layup) and a free throw.

Defensively, they had given up a couple of alarmingly easy buckets.

Something had to change.

"It was more of the fact like, 'Hey, you guys better get your butts moving here,'" Streetsboro coach Nick Marcini said. "You can't come out flat like that. Like we haven't scored it well enough this year to dig ourselves holes. Like we got to hold teams to 40 points because we're only scoring 44. That's got to be our mentality."

The Rockets' revival started on the defensive end as they held the Falcons to a single field goal over the final 3:25 of the first quarter. Streetsboro then held Field without a field goal for the first 5:55 of the second.

Increased intensity and pressure on the defensive end eventually paid dividends on offense. And conversely, the Rockets finally breaking through for a couple of driving buckets allowed them to apply a vicious press.

"We really wanted to get the pressure going, get some traps going, try to cause some turnovers, so we could get out in transition and get some easy [buckets]," Marcini said. "And I thought our guys did a great job, getting deflections, getting on the floor and getting those loose balls and turning them into points."

Ivory, who led Streetsboro with 18 points, helped guide the way, including a nifty hesitation move in the paint for a bank shot to draw within 12-7.

Ivory added a layup in the final seconds of the first off a dish from senior guard Brevyn Nobles, then added a steal by the timeline that he turned into a slick spinning finish to draw within two (14-12) 50 ticks into the second.

Having scored their first 12 points exclusively on layups and free throws, the Rockets eventually got a few outside shots to fall, starting with sophomore Jack Batten's go-ahead 3-pointer 75 seconds into the second.

Forty-five seconds later, Ivory had another strong drive and hesitation move in the paint to push Streetsboro's lead to three, and sophomore Jackson Gula (10 points) added a steal and transition bucket to go up five.

While the Rockets overcame their early deficit largely through grit and hustle, they added plenty of flash before long, including a beautiful no-look pass from Nobles to Benjamin to go up eight (23-15) midway through the second and an Ivory 3-pointer to push their lead to 13 (30-17) minutes later.

Having turned a nine-point deficit midway through the first into a 12-point lead (33-21) at the half, Streetsboro didn't risk another slow start.

Batten (14 points, 3-of-9 from deep) started the second half with a 3-pointer, Gula blasted in from the left side for a driving bank shot and Ivory drove and kicked to fellow sophomore Trevor Murray in the corner for a 3 and a 20-point lead.

How to explain the wild shift?

"I think we just slowed down and started playing as a team," Benjamin said. "At first, we came out slow and weren't really concentrating on the little things, and Coach called a timeout and we came out and started focusing on just playing as a team and playing together."

This article originally appeared on Record-Courier: Streetsboro basketball shakes off sluggish start to storm past Field