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LAKEWOOD, OH – A dominant 21 point effort from Damon Friery led the St. Ignatius Wildcats to a 90-67 victory over St. Ed’s this evening in Lakewood.  Friery was hitting from everywhere on the court and coupled his effort with a 16-point performance from Quinn Woidke and a 14-point effort from Kalli Johnson as the three seniors led the Wildcats to a victory over their rivals.

Friery showed tonight he could play inside and outside along with some transition offense as well, he was everywhere!  I spoke with Friery after the game about his performance tonight, “I knew I was bigger and stronger, so I just headed downhill to combat their physical play.  I get in the gym and work on my shot a lot.”

It was a big win for the Seniors against their vaunted rivals and Friery touched on that as well, “Coming into their place and getting this win is huge.  It is a hard place to win in this tough environment so it was great to get the win.”

The Wildcats spread the ball around nicely tonight and it led to 11 different players scoring.  RJ Jones had 9 while Alex Mack and Steph Bohanon each 7.  Scoring 5 was Jimmy Thomas while Keith Seide had 4 and Sami Dari scored 3. Topping off the Wildcat scoring was Kyle Niehaus and Joe Maloof with 2 each.

The Eagles were led by Bryan Vlosich with 15 while JT Kelsheimer, Nate Yurcich and Carson Link each had 8. For the freshman Link, all 8 of his points came in the later moments of the fourth quarter. Zymir Knox had 9 while Drew Yurcich put in 7.  Rounding out the scoring for the Eagles was Anthony Noar with 5 while Ian Murray, Boden Grant and Marty McGlynn each had 2.  The final Eagle to get a tally on the scorecard was Brendan Ansberry with a point.

The Wildcats raced out to a 6-5 lead when a beautiful inside move by Friery made it 8-5.  A few moments later it was Friery once again making it 13-9 and then again, extending it to 15-9 in favor of the Wildcats.  After two Friery foul shots extended the lead to 19-10, it was a Nate Yurcich basket ending the run.  St. Ignatius held a 21-12 lead after one.

A few minutes into the second, it was 27-14 when Kalli Johnson scored 5 straight points to open the Wildcat lead to 32-14.  At one point, the run reached 36-14 before a Vlosich bucket finally stopped it.  From there, it was Friery taking flight once again and eventually nailing a three ball to open the lead up at 41-17 with 2:56 to play in the first half.

After the Eagles began the third quarter on a 10-6 run, it was Friery calming that down quickly with 6 points in a few minutes and squashing any potential Eagle rally. A Quinn Woidke three at the buzzer put the game away for good as the Wildcats led 69-45 with 8 minutes left to play.  The Wildcats went on from there to pull away for the 90-67 victory.