Dominant third leads Elyria Catholic to victory

Anotherwise evenly contested game was skewed by a dominant third quarter in favor of Elyria Catholic on Dec. 16th, allowing it to come away with a 64-46 victory at home over Vermilion.

“We switched up some things we were doing defensively at halftime,” Elyria Catholic coach Phil Kuchta said. “We wanted to slow things down a bit to make it more of a half court game.”

An up-tempo opening half saw the Panthers take a narrow 28-26 lead into the locker room. Vermilion’s Kyle Nader scored 14 in the first two quarters, and finished leading all scorers with 26.

“Nader was definitely getting loose out there,” said Kuchta. “But our guys played hard and overcame the adversity that was presented to them tonight.”

Early foul trouble combined with the hot shooting from Nader kept the game extremely close until the decisive third quarter, where the Panthers outscored Vermilion, 18-5. Ceeven Shelton exploited his defender regardless of who was on him to constantly finish at the basket. Shelton led Elyria Catholic with 18 points, and just missed a double-double with eight rebounds.

“He (Shelton) rebounded well and showed off his all around skillset,” Kuchta said. “Ceeven and his teammates are growing and adjusting on the court and in the locker room. They are getting to a point to where I can sit back and worry about coaching the game, and not worry about the basic stuff.”

Despite Nader continuing to score in the latter part of the game and the Sailors evening out scoring with Elyria Catholic again in the fourth quarter, the inability of Vermilion to find Nader a scoring compliment was too much to overcome.

DJ Williams played a big role for the Panthers. The senior point guard was simply too fast for the aggressive double-teams thrown at him by Vermilion. He finished with 14 points, many coming on layups and floaters in the face of tough defense, and also managed to grab six rebounds.

James Tirbaso set an authoritative tone down low offensively and defensively to help the cause. Whether it was grabbing a gamehigh eleven rebounds or throwing down a posterizing dunk during a 12-0 Elyria Catholic run to start the third, the big man kept the momentum going in the victory.

“James changed the game,” said Kuchta. “He made a serious effort to get after the ball in all situations in the second half. James and all of us doing that as a team also had a lot to do with the good things that happened for us after halftime. Coach Habermehl also does a great job over there coaching a tough, disciplined team. It was a steep challenge to overcome.”

Elyria Catholic remains undefeated on the season at 4-0 (2-0 in the West Shore Conference). Vermilion drops to 2-2.