Titans to go West for holiday tournament
12/18/2012The St. John’s Jesuit basketball team, one of the top contenders for this season’s Three Rivers Athletic Conference championship, will be flying west the morning after Christmas for a four-day holiday invitational.
The Titans (4-0, 2-0 TRAC) will travel to Arizona for the 16-team, VisitMesa.com Basketball Challenge Dec. 26-29, playing one game each day. They will fly out at 11 a.m. on Dec. 26 and play Gilbert (Ariz.) from suburban Phoenix in a 10:30 p.m. (Toledo time) game to open pool play.
St. John’s will then take on Mercer Island (Wash.) from the Seattle area Dec. 27 and close pool play the next day against the host school, Mountain View from Mesa.
Mountain View’s coach, Gary Ernst became Arizona’s all-time winningest high school basketball coach last February, when he picked up win No. 775. The Mountain View roster includes 6-10 junior post player Payton Dastrup, who is being recruited by Arizona and BYU, among many other Division I college programs.
The Titans, who are led by Ohio State-bound 6-8 senior forward-guard Marc Loving, close play Dec. 29 against an opponent to be determined after pool play.
If St. John’s continues its current winning streak through its three remaining games in Ohio (versus Findlay, St. Francis de Sales, and Lakewood St. Edward) before departing for Mesa, then sweeps through pool play there, 34th-year Titans coach Ed Heintschel (593-186 record) is in line to pick up career win No. 600 on Dec. 29.
Perrysburg’s Williams on All-America soccer team
Perrysburg senior Maddy Williams has been named one of the best soccer players in the nation this year.
The National Soccer Coaches Association of America has selected Williams to its 2012 high school girls All-America team.
Williams, a forward, led the Yellow Jackets to the Division I state title. She scored in every game but one and finished with 48 goals.
Williams, who will play at Purdue, scored the only goal in a 1-0 victory over Mason in the state championship game.
The NSCAA is the world’s largest soccer coaches’ organization. Over the last 30 years, many of the high school players that have been selected as All-Americans by the organization have gone on to be national team members, Olympic Gold medalists, and World Cup winners.
Williams has been invited to attend the annual NSCAA All-America luncheon Jan. 19 in Indianapolis. She also was named to the All-Ohio Scholastic Soccer Coaches Association first team.
Perrysburg was 23-0-0 record and outscored its opponents 108-5.
High-scoring Rebelsoff to fast start
The Rebels are really runnin' at Bowsher.
Through the first six games, the Rebels have averaged 94 points per contest, including back-to-back outings in which they scored at least 100 points.
Their push-the-tempo fastbreak approach has been a major reason for Bowsher (5-1, 2-0 CL) opening the season with five wins in a row before suffering an 80-72 loss at Maumee (4-0) Saturday in its lowest scoring output of the season.
"When you've got guys that can put the ball in the basket, that makes it a lot easier," said Bowsher coach Joe Guerrero.
Juniors Nate Allen, Dajuan King, Jason Sandridge, and Aundre Kizer have been steady scoring threats for the Rebels, who will play at Waite (0-5, 0-2) today before hosting defending City League champion Rogers (3-1, 2-0) on Friday.
— Donald Emmons, Mark Monroe, Steve Junga