ROMM PHOTOGRAPHY
Nick Foschia and the Walsh Jesuit boys basketball team have tough five games left on their regular-season schedule as tournament time looms.
CUYAHOGA FALLS, Ohio -- The Walsh Jesuit Warriors may have the toughest schedule of anyone in Northeast Ohio in the final three weeks of the regular season.
In their final six games, the Warriors will play Firestone (12-3), Mentor Lake Catholic (13-2), St. Vincent-St. Mary (10-6), Benedictine (10-5), Twinsburg (10-5) and Archbishop Hoban (9-5).
That adds up to an opponents’ record of 64-26 and a winning percentage of .800. Among those six teams: Firestone, who will play for the Akron City Series Championship, Mentor Lake Catholic and St. Vincent-St. Mary, who are ranked 11th and 12th in the Associated Press state basketball poll in Division II, and Benedictine, who just dropped out of the Division II poll this week.
“We’re not scared or competing against anybody,” Warriors coach John Norris said. “We have confidence that we can do some good things. We’re not afraid to get ourselves tested, get ourselves ready for tournament time.”
Walsh Jesuit’s record is 10-4. Two of its losses have been to teams its will play in the final three weeks. The Warriors lost to Benedictine 58-57 on Jan. 6 and to Mentor Lake Catholic 39-35 on Feb. 1.
Senior forward Nick Foschia is not worried about the schedule either.
“We have a bunch of tough games coming up in a row,” he said. “We have to focus one game at a time and prepare for each team so we can beat them.”
At the end of these six games we’ll find out if the Warriors are contenders or pretenders.
POLL NUMBERS FOR EAST
This week’s AP poll has the East Dragons rated seventh with a record of 14-1.
Dragons coach Ross Fiorello and athletic director Ron Linger believe that it’s the highest AP ranking in school history.
“We’ve asked everyone who has been around the program for a while and we can’t find anyone who thinks we’ve ever been in the top 10 before last week,” Fiorello said.
The last five games for East feature two against Firestone, Kenmore, Archbishop Hoban and Austintown Fitch.
TOURNAMENT TIME
Selection Sunday for the Ohio High School Athletic Association boys basketball tournament is coming up on Sunday Feb. 12.
The end of the regular season is Feb. 25.
TEAM STREAK
Streaky. It’s the best way to describe Mark Marcinko’s Highland Hornets basketball team this season. The Hornets started off with three losses in a row. Then Highland turned it around with six consecutive wins. With a 6-3 record, the tables were turned on Highland as they lost the next five games in a row.
Last Friday, Highland broke the losing streak at Cloverleaf, beating the Colts 59-40. The Hornets will look for two wins in a row this coming Friday night when they host the Revere Minutemen.