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LYNDHURST, Ohio– Warrensville Height’s junior forward Wayne Chappell took home game MVP honors Sunday afternoon after scoring a game-high 18 points to help lead the Tigers past the Raiders, 54-51.
Warrensville Heights struggled to get things going offensively for most of the first half. They were held scoreless for the first five minutes of the game after a Chris Brownlee Jr. opened up the scoring for his team. That appeared to give his team some confidence, and he was finally able to settle in from there and end the quarter strong.
The Raiders held an 11-9 lead after the first quarter. Keeping that momentum going, the Raiders got out to a 15-9 lead in the first two minutes of the third quarter as the Tigers were unable to limit the second-chance opportunities on the glass.
From there, Demetrius Johnson’s team locked in, ending the first half on a 13-4 run as they held a 22-19 lead heading into halftime.
“In the first half we were a little laid back,” Jonhson explained. “We wanted to adjust and put pressure on them (in the second half) and that’s what we did. We picked it up and pressed them.”
The Tiger lead got as high as nine points in the third quarter, really ramping up the full-court pressure defense that had the Raiders scrambling for an answer. Brownlee Jr. knocked down a 3-pointer and a pair of free throws that helped grow their lead but Raider’s senior guard RJ Thomas kept fighting back for his team, scoring seven of his 11 points in the third quarter to cut the deficit to four points heading into the fourth quarter.
Just when you thought the Tigers were on the verge of wrapping the game up, Kaden Aaron had other plans for his team. He scored seven of his 16 points in the fourth quarter. Trailing by three points with one minute remaining, sophomore forward Casey Robinson had a wide-open corner 3-pointer that fell short and from there, the Raiders only had one more shot to try to cut the deficit but ended up falling short with Brownlee Jr. connected on a pair of free throws with six seconds left to put the game out of reach for coach Danny Young and the Raiders.
For the Raiders, Aaron led the way with 16 points during the loss with RJ Thomas dropping in 11 points along with 10 from Smith.
As for Warrensville Heights, Wayne ended with 18 points, Brownlee was right behind him with 13 points and Que Miller rounded out the scoring with nine points.
