As cold as Northeast Ohio was on Friday night, Cardinal Huskies post player Paul Gall applied a huge amount of heat to anything the Crestwood Red Devils tried to get done near the basket, thwarting several scoring chances.
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As cold as Northeast Ohio was on Friday night, Cardinal Huskies post player Paul Gall applied a huge amount of heat to anything the Crestwood Red Devils tried to get done near the basket, thwarting several scoring chances.
His efforts of blocking and rebounding sparked the Huskies’ early lead, which they never gave up, winning 57-48 in Chagrin Valley Conference action.
After Dekota Johnson took a fast pass from Augie Schweickert for the game’s first points, with just under two minutes off the clock, a Gall put-back tied the score and ignited a 16-0 run for the Huskies. It was not the most artistic of point splurges, but still efficient, establishing a lead that looked rock solid in the moment.
A Charlie Schweickert 3-pointer and a bucket and free throw from Johnson closed out the first quarter for Crestwood to momentarily stop the bleeding.
But with Gall shutting down the inside attempts to score, and his teammates scoring just enough to keep the lead, which reached double digits at halftime, Cardinal withstood a late fourth-period rally that cut their lead to 51-47 with just three minutes to play.
Then Gall again took over the boards, and teammate Ethan Detweiler hit some clutch free throws to seal the verdict.
“We just lost a double-overtime game a couple nights ago to Kirtland,” Gall said. “That was a really tough loss to take. We played very hard and should really have won that game, but we made a couple big mistakes at the wrong times.
“Tonight we played really hard again, which we need to do in every game. We play the same way all the time: as hard as we can. It’s just a matter of taking it one game at a time instead of looking too far ahead, but we play in a tough conference.”
Gall recorded 15 points to go with 17 rebounds, including six offensive. Three ended in put-back baskets, and as the Red Devils attacked to get back in the game, Gall seemed to be in the way most of the night as well. He blocked four shots, and his presence altered the shot selections of several Crestwood athletes.
Cardinal’s Jake Bean scored six in a hurry in that early spurt on his way to a 14-point, nine-rebound evening, while Detweiler added 10 points, including a six-of-six effort from the charity stripe. Those hoops were of the clutch variety as well; two came with 45 ticks left in the third period to push the Cardinal lead back to 42-33, and another pair came with just under a minute left in the game as the Huskies (10-8, 7-2 in CVC) closed out strong.
“We didn’t play our best game tonight,” Cardinal Head Coach Jon Cummins said. “We had some issues with Kirtland because they really put pressure on you all night long. Crestwood did the same tonight after we got that big lead early. They made us start to think a little too much about what we wanted to do. At halftime, a couple of the kids suggested we just try to pound the ball inside to Paul more often, and in the fourth period we finally were able to get it done. They gave us some different wrinkles to deal with, but we made adjustments as we needed to to get the win.”
Though it wasn’t pretty, Gall’s efficiency controlling the paint, Bean’s baskets and boards, and Detweiler’s late free-throw shooting prevented the Huskies from enduring another tough loss. A 39-18 edge on the boards shows how much control Cardinal had when they needed it, and a determined group of Red Devils made sure the Huskies knew they needed to take control.
