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MAYFIELD, Ohio– Once Mayfield figured out a way to exploit the zone defense Willoughby South showed Wednesday night, it opened the game up.
Couple that with Kyle Irwin scoring 10 of his team-high 21 points in the third quarter and that helped Mayfield run away with a 65-52 win, advancing to play Euclid Saturday night in the sectional final.
FINAL: Mayfield defeats Willoughby South 65-52, advancing them to the sectional final Saturday night against Euclid. @MayfieldSports @SportsKee1 pic.twitter.com/203WUNtUdY
— Michael Trivisonno (@MichaelTriv_) February 24, 2022
“It was just hustle, I know he made some threes but Kyle’s hustle is what really got him those threes,” Mayfield head coach Will Brand said about Irwin connecting on two 3-pointers to start the second half scoring run for the Wildcats. “The way he plays defense, the way he rebounds for us just translates into his offense and gets him into a rhythm.”
Willoughby South started the game off on a high note, opening up to an 8-2 run in the first three minutes of the game. The Mayfield closed the quarter on a 15-7 run to take a 17-9 lead after the first quarter.
That’s when South started to come back. They started to force the ball to 6-foot-8 Brandon Lane inside the post where he made it look easy, finishing with 10 points in the first half to pace the Rebel offense. The Rebels never led in the second quarter but tied the game a few times as they trailed by just three points at the break.
“He’s a big boy,” Brand said about Lane and his presence near the rim. “He puts his hands up and he’s pretty much seven feet. That’s something different for us to see….eventually we started to wear him down a little bit running up the floor late in the game.”
“What gave us troubles is that our bigs got tired and we all needed subs,” Irwin said about South being able to come back late in the first half. “When we’re all not in together, we’re not that big… and we struggled.”
With Mayfield going through its sets more in the third quarter, it started to wear down on the Rebel defense which led to easy layups for the Wildcats. Players like Irwin and Hayden Nahra created problems all night inside the paint and with that, the Wildcats took a seven-point lead into the fourth quarter.
“It was wide open for us and in the second half, I told our guys we just have to be patient. If we’re patient and work the ball, it opens the zone up for us and they did a good job of carrying that plan on,” Brand said on his team being able to exploit Willoughby South’s zone.
“I told the team ‘I’m standing middle, pass me the ball, I’ll do my thing,'” Irwin said. “They passed me the ball, I got some assists off of it and got some shots.”
Kyle Irwin helps put @MayfieldSports up 49-42 heading into the fourth quarter.
He’s up to 16 points to pace the Wildcat offense. @SportsKee1 pic.twitter.com/guNVMTcC0W— Michael Trivisonno (@MichaelTriv_) February 24, 2022
Once guys like Alex Page, Nahra and Irwin started making plays up the court in the fourth quarter, South couldn’t figure out a plan to stop it. After Irwin found a cutting Page for an easy layup early in the fourth quarter to put the Wildcats up 53-42, their lead remained in double figures for the rest of the night.
With the win, Mayfield will now host Euclid Saturday night with the winner advancing to the district semifinal.
“I know they don’t play too much zone and play a lot of man so that’s kind of a good thing for us,” Brand said about playing Euclid. “At the end of the day, their mentality of how they get after it, we have to be able to match that and score.”
