It was a tale of two halves Dec. 16 at Elyria when the Pioneers hosted Olmsted Falls in a Southwestern Conference boys basketball matchup.
With senior guard Michael Candow scoring 19 points in the opening half, the Bulldogs jumped to an early lead of 17-5 and were on top at halftime, 37-28. But Elyria turned up the intensity in the second half, held Candow to just one point, and came away with a 63-59 victory. In winning their home opener, the Pioneers are now 3-2 overall and 2-1 in SWC play, while Olmsted Falls is 3-4 and 0-3.
When asked what changed from one half to the next, Elyria coach Brett Larrick didn’t hesitate to answer.
“How hard we played,” he said. “We played harder, got stops and rebounded the ball. I’m really proud of our guys, to finally pick it up and get going. It was like a fire got lit in the second half.”
According to senior guard Ryan Walsh, the fire was lit in the halftime locker room.
“We talked about our work ethic,” Walsh said. “Our gameplan was to stop Candow, and he had 19 in the first half. Props to him. We really just needed to go harder. Offensive rebounds were killing us. We started to focus on rebounding and playing harder. It was really just a regroup kind of thing. Let’s go out and play hard. We’ve got nothing to lose. Let’s just go out and show them what we’ve got.”
The comeback was keyed by the defensive efforts of Maurion Thomas and Mateo Medina, who took turns hounding Candow from the moment he stepped onto the court. In the first half the strategy didn’t work so well, as Candow hit 6 of 9 shots, including 4 of 6 from beyond the arc. But he missed all 10 of his shots in the second half and was limited to just one made free throw.
“In the second half, Maurion and Mateo really did a good job on Candow,” Larrick said. “All of our guys did, because we wanted to take it out of his hands right away in the full court. In the second half we kind of did the gameplan the way we wanted, trying to limit his touches and make shots tough. Those two guys did a heck of a job.”
When sophomore Jimmy Rosol hit a layup with 5 minutes, 53 seconds left in the third quarter, Olmsted Falls was sitting on a 12-point advantage, 45-33. However, the Bulldogs would only score 14 points in the game’s remaining 14 minutes. Part of the low output was because Olmsted Falls was being patient on offense and working for a good shot. But when Elyria turned up the intensity, good shots were hard to come by.
“Obviously, Elyria stepped up the pressure a little bit, and maybe they were a little bit more physical,” Olmsted Falls coach Chris DeLisio said. “But to be honest, I didn’t think we did a terrible job. I don’t think anything bad happened. I was proud of my guys. I thought that we fought. I thought we were a much better team than we were Tuesday against Midview. I didn’t think we played with a lot of competitive fire against Midview and tonight I thought we did.”
A big momentum swing came at the end of the third quarter, when Elyria sophomore Jayden Crutcher flew in for a two-handed dunk with nine seconds to go in the period. With the crowd and the bench going wild, the Pioneers were down by five, 49-44, the closest they had been since the score was 8-5, just 2 minutes into the game.
“I think Jayden’s dunk kind of energized us a little bit,” Larrick said. “I think after that we had a bunch of stops.”
Less than 90 seconds into the final quarter Elyria had its first lead since scoring the opening basket of the night. Cam Bell opened the period with a 3-pointer—one of four bombs for the freshman—followed by a made free throw by B.J. Todd. Walsh then hit one from beyond the arc to make it 51-49 with 6:32 to play.
Rosol, who finished with 14 points, stepped up and scored five consecutive points for the Bulldogs, completing a three-point play and then scoring on an offensive rebound to give Olmsted Falls its last lead at 54-51 with 5:55 to go. Then it was Crutcher’s turn to take over, hitting consecutive 3-pointers as Elyria finally took a lead it would not relinquish.
“On the defensive end, probably the most glaring mistakes were that we were just a tad bit late on Crutcher and Walsh and their freshman shooter I think maybe four times and I think they made them all,” DeLisio said. “You can’t be late on guys like that, and we were just a tad bit late.”
Crutcher led four players in double figures for Elyria with 15 points. Walsh and Bell each had 12 and Medina had 11. Candow and Rosol were the only players for Olmsted Falls to reach double figures.
