End Regular Season on 15th Straight Win
Way back on Dec. 23, the Chagrin Falls boys basketball team had lost its second consecutive game and dropped to 3-4 on the season, down four players due to injury.
Game photos click here.
Way back on Dec. 23, the Chagrin Falls boys basketball team had lost its second consecutive game and dropped to 3-4 on the season, down four players due to injury.
Fast forward about two months, though, and the Tigers have rattled off 15 straight wins, claimed a Co-CVC Valley Division title, and head into the postseason sizzling.
“It’s a remarkable story,” Head Coach Dave Bargar said following the team’s 64-55 win over Aurora on Feb. 20. “Even if you’re a good team and you’re healthy the whole season, it’s darn hard to win 15 high school basketball games. So what they have been able to do is remarkable on so many levels. A lot of what I’m most proud of is the fact that, as we started to acclimate guys back in, everybody took it, everybody settled into their role.
“Some of the guys that are normally starters were coming off the bench. Some of the guys who were playing a ton of minutes early now have their minutes cut, but they’ve all bought into their roles — and when you have a selfless group, it’s dangerous, and you can do a lot of damage, and that is what these guys are doing right now.”
Despite all the glam of 15 straight wins, the Tigers still had to find ways to earn them.
They’ve had some comfortable wins, some down-to-the-wire wins, a pair of defensive slugfests, some come-from-behind victories, and a few wins that some may consider miraculous, all in the mix.
“We’ll always fight for wins,” junior guard Jake Vasko said. “We’ll fight to the end; we don’t get down on ourselves, and that’s one thing I like about our squad.”
Chagrin Falls has also done it with a multitude of different players leading the way on the scoreboard.
“We’re an unselfish group, and we preach unselfishness and making the extra pass, and that’s one of the reasons why we have multiple guys that can have big games,” Bargar said of his team’s offensive versatility. “We don’t want to face teams all the time that have one great scorer, and we actually think it’s not very difficult to guard one guy, if that’s the offensive focus.
“Now, some of the guys are elite, and that’s a different story. But most high school guys that we play, and they’re the leading scorers, we’ve got guys that can guard. When you have a group like us, and we’ve got a bunch of guys that can do different things, it’s hard for the other team to focus on one player.”
With so many games decided by just a few possessions or even a few points, it’s crucial to stay focused on the task at hand, and the Tigers did just that in their win over the visiting Greenmen to close out the regular season.
Chagrin Falls led Aurora by as much as 13 before their lead was cut to four entering the fourth. Then they dug deep and walked away with a nine-point win.
“We were down by nine with three minutes to go against Harvey on our first win in the streak — I mean, it’s just about being resilient,” Bargar said. “They’ve been through it, so it doesn’t faze them, and they don’t get rattled.”
This year’s underclassmen have even collected a good amount of experience, he added.
“Again, it comes back to the fact that they want to play for each other and do something bigger than themselves, and that’s basically the bottom line,” said their coach.
So is confidence, he added: “Now I think they believe that they’re gonna win. … And we’re hard to prepare for, because in our 10 league games, we had six leading scorers.”
Against Aurora, Chagrin Falls was led by senior forward Harrison Horvath, who posted an 18-point, 10-rebound double-double, and Vasko, who added 18 points on eight-of-nine shooting with five boards and assists.
Rounding out the double-digit scoring was Owen Adelman, who posted 14 points on five-of-10 shooting. Quin Bargar chipped in six points, three assists and two steals, and Jack Orazen finished with four points and four boards.
This postseason, the Tigers are the second seed in their Division V Northeast District 2 bracket. They’ll host the winner of Mantua Crestwood or Garrettsville Garfield for a district semifinal on Feb. 28 at 1 p.m.
“In the locker room, Coach told us the job wasn’t finished,” Horvath said. “One chapter just ended, so now we have to start a new one and work for a strong run.”
