PARMA — There wasn’t much the Hoover High School boys basketball team could do but look on from its bench.
The Vikings watched as Painesville Riverside received their medals in a 64-61 Division II boys basketball district final win at Valley Forge High School on Saturday, March 7.
With 8 seconds left, Riverside senior Drew Brown sank three free throws to seal its victory. Hoover couldn’t connect on a 3 at the buzzer to send the game into overtime.
“Drew’s been a really solid free throw shooter for the last couple of years,” Riverside coach Mike Cardina said. “In a playoff game two years ago, he missed every single free throw. For him to hit those was huge.”
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“I’m proud of them,” Hoover head coach Mike Bluey said after his team finished the year at 17-8. “They do things the right way. They give back to the program the way that they need to. This is the tough side of learning lessons of athletics. You’ve got a winner and a loser. I love our kids to death. We have great kids to coach. We’re all upset but I’m always proud of them.”
Hoover held a 57-50 lead with 4:41 left following a Roman Geiselman’s layup. The Beavers then went on a 8-0 run to make it 58-57 capped by a Palmer Hanlin layup and free throw. Hanlin answered with a 3 and Geiselman laid one in to tie it at 61. Brown was fouled near the top of the key to set up the game-winning free throws.
The Vikings couldn’t get shots to fall when they needed them.
“We put ourselves in position for that call to make or break us,” Bluey said. “We missed four lay-ins at the bucket. It’s 57-50 for four or five straight possessions. We had a turnover or two in that sequence. With those four missed lay-ins, you can’t ask for a better look at the bucket considering time-and-score situation. That extends it to a three-possession game. That puts a lot of pressure on them offensively. We didn’t convert. They hung in there. The call is what it is. We put ourselves in that position.”
Riverside went on a 10-1 run to open the game. Brown buried three 3-pointers in the first half and finished with 24 points.
The Vikings found some momentum after that. Junior Hunter Hershberger splashed a 3 from the top of the key as the first quarter clock expired. Riverside led 18-11 after one.
“We were keyed in on him,” Cardina said of Hershberger. “They have other good players. I don’t want to take anything away from them because they’re a good squad. But he’s the big spoon that stirs the Kool-Aid for them.”
Three straight baskets from junior Connor Newell in the second quarter finally got a subdued Hoover crowd into the game. Newell finished with 20 points. The Vikings led 31-25 at the break.
“We felt good going into halftime after being down what we were to start the game,” Bluey said. “We had good momentum. They were in foul trouble. We had a seven- or a nine-point lead and we just couldn’t extend it. We needed a stop and a score to push that thing to 11 or 12 and we never got it there. From the way we started to how we came into halftime, we liked where we were at. We just didn’t execute down the stretch.”
The Canton Repository sports department can be contacted via email at sports@cantonrep.com.
This article originally appeared on The Repository: Hoover boys basketball’s late lead slips away in OHSAA district final loss
Reporting by Walt Doerschuk, Correspondent / The Repository
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