Boys district basketball: Black River wins first-ever home tournament game

SULLIVAN TWP. — The Black River boys basketball team wasn't about to lose the first home postseason game in program history. Playing in front of a large and raucous crowd, the 16th-seeded Pirates got off to a great start and held it together well enough to down 21st-seeded Waynedale 58-53 Saturday in a Division V, Northeast 4 District quarterfinal for their first tournament win since 2010. "I think everyone from Spencer and Sullivan was out here," said forward Parker Broadsword, who had 17 points, seven rebounds and four assists. "It was the loudest I've ever heard it in here. It was awesome to get a home playoff win." Next up for the Pirates (14-9), who became the first Black River team to win 14 games in a season since the 1997-98 squad, is a district semifinal at fourth-seeded Manchester (19-5), a 56-42 winner over No. 27 Shaw (6-15), at 7 p.m. Wednesday. Waynedale finished its season 12-11. "This means so much," forward Zane Kristophel said of winning the school's first postseason home game. "I've never felt this way about a basketball game. There's never been this many people supporting us." The Pirates stormed out of the gate, playing great man-to-man defense while going up 9-0 as the Golden Bears missed their first seven shots. Black River held Waynedale to 1-for-12 from the field and got 10 points from Broadsword while taking a 14-4 lead after the opening period. That stretched to 28-10 when Wade Mangan hit a 3-pointer with 4:35 to go in the first half, but it got interesting from there. Waynedale closed to 31-21 at intermission and was down 11 after the third quarter, but the Golden Bears had started making shots and Black River had stopped attacking while getting a bit careless with the ball. Up 54-49 late, the Pirates caught a break when Waynedale's Evan Yoder missed a 3-pointer with 1:28 to play, setting up the biggest sequence of the game. Broadsword, who was 4-for-7 from distance, missed a 3-pointer he probably shouldn't have taken, but high-octane freshman Dom Bell poked the ball away from a Golden Bears player in the backcourt, dove on the floor near the sideline and pushed the ball off that player and out of bounds, giving the Pirates possession with 1:06 on the clock. Zane Bungard then scored at the rim off a great Broadsword pass and the Golden Bears never got closer than five until Brayden Schlabach scored to make it 57-53 with 3.8 ticks on the clock, at which time Waynedale had to use its last timeout, essentially ending the game. "We wouldn't be here at all without Dom Bell," Broadsword said. "He's one of the best hustle kids I've been around." Josh Stuart added eight points, a game-high eight rebounds and two assists for the Pirates, Mangan had seven points off the bench, Bungard contributed five points and six boards, point guard Hunter Varney had five points, all in the fourth quarter, and five assists and Bell posted four points, four rebounds and four assists. "We were up 18 points and some of us had the attitude that the game was pretty much over," Kristophel said. "We should have kept pushing through everything and attacked the rim trying to score." Power forward Yoder led Waynedale with 14 points, while center Schlabach had 12 points and five boards, small forward Braedon Lorentz had eight and five and Trevyn Frazier added 11 and five off the bench. Black River went just 9-for-17 at the line and the Golden Bears were 8-for-16, while the Pirates won the rebounding battle 34-23. Next up is Manchester, the alma mater of first-year Black River coach Kyle Dack, who graduated in 2011. "He knows a lot of their kids," Broadsword said. "They're pretty tall and they have a lot of good guards. We're going to have to have some good practices." Contact Rick Noland at (330) 721-4046 or rnoland@medina-gazette.com. Black River 58, Waynedale 53 Division V, Northeast 4 District Quarterfinal WAYNEDALE 4 17 12 20 — 53 BLACK RIVER 14 17 13 14 — 58 Waynedale — Braedon Lorentz 2-3-8, Evan Yoder 6-2-14, Brayden Schlabach 6-0-12, Luke Lorentz 2-2-6, Ernie Schmucker 1-0-2, Trevyn Frazier 4-1-11, Jack Holcomb 0-0-0. TOTALS: 21-8-53. Black River — Parker Broadsword 5-3-17, Zane Kristophel 5-2-12, Zane Bungard 2-1-5, Josh Stuart 3-0-8, Hunter Varney 1-3-5, Wade Mangan 3-0-7, Dom Bell 2-0-4, Austin Pamer 0-0-0. 21-9-58. 3-point goals — Frazier 2, Brae. Lorentz, Broadsword 4, Stuart 2, Mangan. Rebounds — Waynedale 23 (Brae. Lorentz 6), Black River 34 (Stuart 8). Assists — Waynedale 14 (Schmucker 3), Black River 15 (Varney 5). Records — Waynedale (12-11), Black River (14-9).