High school basketball: Medina boys make plays, hold off potential upset by Streetsboro

MEDINA — For three quarters, an unusually small crowd Wednesday night pondered whether the Medina boys basketball team would wake up in time to finally put away upset-minded, unafraid Streetsboro in non-league play. Center Matt Spatny, power forward Bryce Beech and point guard Carter Hipp — all rotational veterans from last winter's regional finalist team — soon put those fears to rest, making plays on both ends of the floor to help the Bees pull away 74-64 from the Metro Athletic Conference leader. Medina (10-6) trailed 42-35 with 6:13 left in the third quarter but forced a 53-53 tie heading into the fourth, when it played great defense, executed its clock-chewing offense called "pause" to perfection and outscored the Rockets (12-6) 21-11. "It's always a good time to play, but it was a weird night," Spatny said. "This game was more to clean stuff up because we're about to enter into the tournament. "Obviously in the first half we didn't come out very strong, but second half we really stepped up. Defense leads to offense, and that's what we really need to focus on for the tournament." Spatny led the Bees with 18 points, seven rebounds, two blocks and two assists. Drew Hensley helped Medina stay afloat with 11 of his 16 points in the middle quarters, while Beech (11 points, 8 rebounds, 4 assists) held Streetsboro 1,000-point scorer Devin Reese without a point for the first seven minutes of the fourth quarter, when Hipp had all eight of his points and two of his three assists. With coach Chris Hassinger going 13 deep in the rotation, the Bees got critical scoring from Hensley as well as junior varsity standouts Brock Beech and Benny Meyers. Beech scored five points in the middle quarters, while Meyers drilled a corner 3-pointer that put them up 58-53 with 6:41 remaining in the game. "They had a huge impact on the game," Spatny said without hesitation. "(Hensley) hit four threes and Benny and Brock are new but they're learning and have tremendous talent. I think they can help this team out a lot." Streetsboro got 24 points from Reese, who consistently drove to the rim and finished with contact. Veteran power forward Bryce Vecchio added 21 points and rangy point guard Brevyn Nobles had 11 points, seven rebounds and six assists, meaning the trio had 56 of the Rockets' 64 points, 15 of their 24 rebounds and nine of their 10 assists. Coming into the night, Streetsboro's five losses had been by a combined 24 points. "You're playing a smaller school and it's a big deal to them to come in and try to beat Medina," Hassinger said. "We didn't take them seriously enough in the beginning. They're very well-coached and changed defense on us, which gave us fits." Division II Streetsboro, however, couldn't keep up in the fourth because it didn't pose much of a threat from 3-point range. Medina finally got stops behind Bryce Beech and Spatny, and Spatny, Beech and Hipp had 14 points and six assists in the period as the Bees got multiple layups out of their three-guard, pause offense. Hipp made 4-of-4 free throws in the closing moments to make the final score a bit misleading. "I was most pleased with our discipline down the stretch," Hassinger said. "As we've been saying all year long: Don't do our own thing. They don't understand they'll get knocked out in the first round of the tournament if they do that. We're not good enough to beat anybody. "You could see the difference when our point guards ran what we wanted to run and got us organized. Everything just exploded from there." Contact Albert Grindle at (330) 721-4043 or agrindle@medina-gazette.com. Medina 74, Streetsboro 64 STREETSBORO &emsp;&emsp;15 19 19 11 — 64 MEDINA &emsp;&emsp;12 20 21 21 — 74 Streetsboro — Micah Schuster 1-0-2, Bryce Vecchio 8-3-21, Sam Abbuhl 0-4-4, Devin Reese 11-1-24, Brevyn Nobles 4-2-11, Bryan Nobles 1-0-2, Airyman Singh 0-0-0, Gabe Gill 0-0-0. TOTALS: 25-10-64. Medina — Bryce Beech 4-3-11, Tre Hammond 1-0-3, Matt Spatny 8-2-18, Luke Klanac 1-0-2, Carter Hipp 2-4-8, Jajuan Jackson 0-3-3, Michael Rodak 1-0-2, Drew Hensley 6-0-16, Stephen Mosak 1-1-3, Sahib Singh 0-0-0, Ben Butler 0-0-0, Brock Beech 1-2-5, Benny Meyers 1-0-3. TOTALS: 26-15-74. 3-point goals — Vecchio 2, Reese, Bre. Nobles, Hensley 4, Hammond, Bro. Beech, Meyers. Rebounds — Streetsboro 24 (Bre. Nobles 7), Medina 29 (Bry. Beech 8). Assists — Streetsboro 10 (Bre. Nobles 6), Medina 18 (Bry. Beech 4). Records — Streetsboro (12-6), Medina (10-6). Junior varsity — Medina 69, Streetsboro 29 (M: Meyers 10 points).