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North Olmsted, OH – The dynamic duo of Nathan Borling and Justin Smith were too much to handle as the Columbia Raiders defeated North Olmsted 63-42 on the road tonight. Borling was simply unstoppable as he drove hard, pick and rolled and also shot from deep at will tonight. Finishing with 29, the young man proved to be the difference maker as his pick and roll with Justin Smith who had 20, couldn’t be stopped. Time after time, they worked the paint and the lane, to wide open layups. Because of upper body strength, the made the contested shots as well.
The two combined for 49 of their teams 63 points as the other ones came from Ethan Meier with 7 while Logan Menge had 4 and Dylan Fisher 3. The Eagles were led by Naoki Sato with 10 while Juelz Santiago had 8. Donovan Martin, Matthew Bloomfield and Nick Tepper each finished with 6. Rounding out the Eagle scoring was Dylan Susan and Austin Limpert with 3 each. A special shout out to AJ Ryant who dressed and got his first varsity minutes.
After the Raiders jumped out to a 5-0 lead on a Borling 3 and some foul shots, the Eagles struck back with a Nick Tepper three pointer. It would do little to cool the Raiders however as they went on a 9-2 run to extend their lead to 14-5 lead. Following a Sato bucket, another Tepper three cut it to 14-10. The Raiders went on to take a 16-12 lead after one.
At one point, the Eagles cut it to 20-17 in the second quarter before Borling and the Raiders erupted again to extend the lead to 27 – 21 by halftime. Again, it was Borling having his way inside with 9 total points in the quarter, and 15 in the opening half.
Early into the third quarter, a Justin Smith layup went in and led to a foul shot, he missed the foul shot but the rebound went back to Smith who scored again, accounting for 4 points in 5 seconds. It was a sign of how the rest of the quarter was going to go as a Borling three pointer at the buzzer, from 5 feet behind the three-point line, put the game pretty much away at 44-28, entering the third.
The Raiders cruised in the fourth, to complete the 63-42 victory. A special congrats to Austin Limpert however who played until the final buzzer, nailing a three pointer as the clock struck double zero.
