Bishop Watterson uses big fourth quarter for 40-33 win over St. Francis DeSales
COLUMBUS, Ohio – As is typically the case when teams in the Central Catholic League meet, the St. Francis DeSales and Bishop Watterson boys basketball teams seemed almost destined from the tipoff to be involved in a low-scoring and tightly contested game to close their respective regular seasons Friday.
Played at Ohio Dominican University but considered a home game for the Eagles, the latest matchup between the league rivals came down to which team got the final momentum burst.
In this case it was Watterson, which outscored the Stallions by 12 in the fourth quarter on its way to a 40-33 victory and season sweep of the series.
The Eagles had lost three of four but are 13-9 overall and finished with a 3-5 league record while DeSales is 14-8 overall and went 2-6 in the CCL.
“Obviously with the CCL locked up by Ready, there weren’t any (title) implications with this game, but we wanted the momentum (heading into the postseason), and above and beyond, we wanted to beat DeSales,” senior Ryan Rudzinski said. “It’s a rivalry game, and who are we kidding? This is the last crack we’ve got at these guys since we won’t see them in the tournament because they’re Division I (and Watterson competes in Division II). We wanted to go out on a high note and beat those guys.”
DeSales got a 3-pointer from Mike Walker with 50 seconds left in the third quarter for a 25-20 lead that was its biggest lead since the first quarter.
The Eagles, however, answered what had been a 7-0 run by the Stallions with a 7-0 run of their own to open the final period.
Junior Henry Monnin, who took over this season as Watterson’s point guard in support of a veteran frontcourt, hit a 3-pointer with 7:22 to go. Rudzinski then made a pair of free throws and senior guard Owen Samenuk scored to give the Eagles a 27-25 lead with 5:52 remaining.
Walker made three free throws to give DeSales a 28-27 lead, but Watterson’s Seven Scott hit the first of two foul shots with 3:20 to go and made a 3-pointer 10 seconds later to give his team a 33-31 lead.
DeSales cut a six-point lead to 37-33 with 58.3 to go on a basket by P.J. Noles, but a steal by Monnin set up an opportunity for Scott to go to the line with 25.7 seconds to go, and he hit both free throws.
Noles missed a 3-pointer with 15 seconds left.
“I just kept on telling my team to have short-term memory, so when they do something wrong, they forget about it,” Watterson senior post player Cole Rhett said. “This is big because it’s going to help give us momentum going into the (postseason). We just wanted it more.”
Rhett, who stands 6-foot-6 and is a three-star recruit in football who has signed with Toledo, picked up his third foul with 5:48 to go in the third quarter. He returned in the fourth and had four points, four rebounds and one blocked shot on his way to finishing with 14 points and 10 rebounds.
Rudzinski, who has committed to Ohio State as a preferred walk-on in football as a defensive back, had seven points and 10 rebounds.
“We just were sticking to the process and trusting the plan (head) coach (Vince) Lombardo has,” Rudzinski said. “We obviously like it when Cole’s in, but we’ve got great guys coming off the bench. We stuck to the course and hit shots at the end.”
DeSales closed the regular season with back-to-back close losses but had won seven of eight prior to that and is the 15th seed for the Division I district tournament. The Stallions have a first-round bye and will play the winner of 18th-seeded Grove City or No. 32 Mifflin in a second-round game February 24th.
Noles was temporarily shaken up early in the fourth quarter after hitting the floor before returning. He finished with 15 points.
“It was just situational basketball,” Stallions head coach Pat Murphy said. “We’re up 25-20, Vince calls a timeout, we take a bad shot and they come down and bang a 3.
“We were shooting 38 percent from (3-point range heading into the game) and we were only two of 15 from 3. We didn’t make shots, and you’ve got to give their defense credit for that. We got (offensive rebounds), but we were only seven of nine on free throws so we didn’t make the refs call fouls, and we were only 27 percent from the field.”
Rhett, who averages 11 points, went 5-for-8 from the floor.
Watterson split its last six games but is the No. 3 seed for the Division II district tournament. It opens February 21st at home against 19th-seeded Hamilton Township.
“DeSales is a tough ball club, they’re a hard-nosed scrappy team and it was an either-way ball game,” Lombardo said. “These teams are very familiar with each other and the kids get after each other real hard. These are good rivalry games. I thought we came up with a couple nice stops and finally were about to hit a couple shots.
“We got about as good of a draw as we could have hoped for. Hamilton Township is playing better basketball. It’s tourney time and you’ve got to be ready to play some solid basketball.”