FREMONT – Every win feels good, especially when wins have been hard to come by. But, even in the hardest of times, certain wins feel better than others.
Maliek Johnson
Keyon Sewell
But winning a third-straight game and doing so on an arch-rival’s home court in front of a large, frenzied crowd in a frenetic fourth quarter? Wins just don’t come any sweeter than that.
Fremont Ross can testify to that after taking a thrilling 70-61 victory over Sandusky Saturday night, scoring a season-high output in the second of back-to-back nights, while also giving a tremendous effort on the defensive end of the floor.
“It’s Sandusky. You hate to lose to Sandusky,” junior Bryce McKinstry said. “It’s more personal when we play Sandusky. We just have to show our fans and out community that we don’t want to lose to Sandusky. We bought in and we said, ‘We’re not losing to Sandusky,’”
Just 24 hours early, Ross defeated Toledo Central Catholic 45-44 thanks, in part, to a tremendous defensive effort, limiting the opposition’s penetration to the basket, and that carried over to Saturday. The Little Giants forced the Blue Streaks to content themselves to shoot from long-distance where they made just 6-of-28 attempts.
Bryce McKinstry
Bryce Root
When Sandusky missed, Ross’ McKinstry and Bryce Root were there to clean up the glass. The Bryces combined for 24 rebounds, each grabbing 12.
“(Sandusky’s London Havens) is a big dude,” Root said. “(McKinstry) was guarding him and I told him ‘Just box him out.’ When they played Clyde that’s how they got most of their points, off offensive rebounds, so we knew what our job was, to go get boards.”
With less than three minutes remaining in the third quarter, Ross trailed by five, 42-37, before closing the period on a 7-0 run, capped by a jumper by McKinstry to give the Little Giants a 44-42 lead heading into the fourth quarter.
The final eight minutes were a back-and-forth seesaw of big shots made by both teams. Ross grew its lead to seven less than a minute into the fourth before Sandusky answered with a six-point run of its own to cut the Little Giant lead down to one midway through the quarter.
Ross, however, roared back with an eight-point run, threatening to blow the game open, leading by nine with 2:45 to play. But Sandusky’s Keith Williams’ inbounded the ball off McKinstry’s back and scored. Second later, Williams scored again off a Ross turnover, just like that cutting the Blue Streak deficit down to just five.
Keyon Sewell answered for Ross with a big 3-pointer, which Sandusky answered on their next trip down the court with a 3-pointer of the own and the gym at Sandusky was roaring with approval.
While both teams hit big shots and went on small scoring runs, each was answered. Ross coach Mark Gedeon was thrilled with how his Little Giants remained calm and kept their composure in such a frenzied game.
“We talk about trying to keep our players in the now and focus on each play,” Gedeon said. “It was a great tournament atmosphere, it’s a traditional rivalry that goes back through the histories of the schools. We rally haven’t been in this atmosphere with our players, something like this, with the quality of opponent and the game going back and forth like it was. So, it’s very positive to see how our players responded.”
Friday night, Ross had trouble hitting its free throws late, which nearly cost them the game as Central Catholic as a shot at the end to win the game. The Little Giants gave the Blue Streaks not breaks at the free throw line Saturday. Ross was a perfect 10-for-10 at the line in the fourth quarter and was 17-20 for the game. Sandusky, on the other hand, made just 1 of 7 free throws.
Maliek Johnson finished with 15 points, including 6-for-6 at the line, all coming in the fourth quarter.
“Those are the wins we live for,” Johnson said. “We practice free throws every day in practice for moments like this. Me at the line, and putting the game, basically, in the bag, it’s the kind of thing you live for.”
Sewell led Ross with 19 points while Jabryis Heidelburg added 10 points.
Ross’ record improves to 6-10 overall and closes a week in which the Little Giants won three games since Tuesday night.
We talked about at the beginning of the week, coming off St. Francis and St. John’s, two elite teams, what could we accomplish this week? We knew last week we wanted to show improvement, we knew the competition would be tough and hopefully it would carry us to this week. We challenged our players at the beginning of the week, ‘Can we win three games in a week?’ and by gosh they responded to the challenge.”
Fremont Ross 70, Sandusky 61
FR | 13—13—18—26 70
SHS| 13—18—11—19 61
ROSS (70)
Johnson 4 6-6 15; Anderson 1 0-0 2; Sewell 5 6-6 19; Heidelburg 3 4-4 10; Root 4 0-0 10; McKinstry 5 1-4 11; Campbell 1 0-0 3. Totals, 23 17-20 70.
SANDUSKY (61)
Williams 8 0-0 17; Staveskie 7 1-3 16; Jones 6 0-2 16; Swain 1 0-0 2; Caston 0 0-2 0; Baldwin3 0-0 6; Havens 1 0-0 2. Totals, 17 1-7 61.
3-pointers: FR, 7 (Sewell 3, Root 2, Johnson 1, Campbell 1); SHS 6 (Jones 4, Williams 1, Staveskie 1).