by Lakewood led 45-13 with 6:31 left to play in the third quarter when they pulled all five starters and never put them back in. They didn’t need too, they had taken up real estate in the paint in the first half. They didn’t need to after one of the most dominant first halves of basketball you will ever see as North Olmsted had zero answers to stop the Rangers from scoring in the paint. The Rangers went on to win 65-52, clinching the CWC Championship in the process.
The Rangers were led by Nathan Bruwer with 12 while Lamarien Wilson had 10 and Riley Verderber with 8. The Eagles were led by Anthony D’Alessandro with 10 while Dom Martin had 8 and Cory Kraft 7. A special shout out to Nick Fratini who made his first start of the season on varsity while scoring 6 points.
After a close 4 minutes that saw the Rangers hold a slim 7-4 lead, the final four minutes of the first quarter were dominated by Lakewood. The Rangers went on a 10-0 run to stretch the lead to 17-4 until an Anthony D’Allesandro foul shot stopped it. The Rangers went on to lead 19-5 after the first quarter.
The Rangers started the second quarter on an 8-0 run and it was all downhill from there for the Eagles as they had zero answers to stop it. Of the 21 second quarter points for the Rangers, 18 of them came in the paint. Their was no muscle down low for North Olmsted, no answer, no rebounding, no defense, just a wide open middle that had zero fight, zero toughness, zero anything at all to stop it or defend it. The Rangers just kept pounding the middle time after time.
The sole North Olmsted highlight came to start the fourth quarter when they hit 8 straight foul shots to start the quarter along with a Cory Kraft 3 pointer to begin the quarter on a 13-0 run against the 5 Rangers off the bench.
