St. Vincent-St. Mary gets emotional win over Archbishop Hoban in rivalry game

The Fighting Irish have now won 10 of the last 11 meetings against the Knights

AKRON, Ohio -  Archbishop Hoban came into the season as the defending state champions, a title St. Vincent-St. Mary is used to entering a season carrying.

The Fighting Irish have not forgotten last year, and wanted to show they were still the true best basketball team in Akron and think they did just that with a 71-62 road win on Friday night over Hoban. It was the 10th time in 11 seasons that the Fighting Irish have beaten their crosstown rival.

"It was important because we beat them last year and we felt like they wouldn't have beat us last year in the playoffs," STVM senior guard Jayson Walker said.

The two teams played a fairly evenly matched first half, with STVM enjoying a 26-21 lead after two quarters. But then in the third quarter, the Fighting Irish took control of the game with a 10-4 run that gave them a 40-30 lead after a basket by junior John Whorton.

Whorton scored 10 points in the third quarter, and the 6-foot-8 center knocked down a pair of 3-pointers.

"I've always had that range," Whorton said. "I just started analyzing how they were playing me. They were playing me back and letting me shoot, so shooters are going to shoot."

STVM (4-6) made adjustments at the half, emphasizing ball movement. The Fighting Irish didn't have a single assist in the first half but came out with eight in the second half.

"I thought we did some good stuff and made some pretty good decisions," STVM head coach Dru Joyce II said. "We have to be better distributing the ball in those situations."

Emotions were on high alert all game between the two rival schools, but started overflowing in the middle of the third quarter, as STVM sophomore Rayshawn Hamilton and Hoban senior Jonas Nichols butted heads and had to be separated, each being given a technical foul.

"They know each other really well," Joyce II said. "It's like playing on the playground. I just knew that nothing else was gonna happen, that they were just talking trash. I thought the refs did a good job of controlling it."

Nichols, who led all scorers with 24 points, never seemed to get into the rhythm that the Kent State commit has gotten used to this season.

"I thought we did a great job handling Jonas," Joyce II said. "He's a good player. We understood and knew that everything they do kind of goes through him. Rayshawn did a great job guarding him man-to-man."

STVM had a balanced scoring attack, with six players scoring at least seven points. Walker led the Fighting Irish with 17, Whorton had 14, Hamilton and DeCarlo Prince had 12 each, Noah Chambers added nine and SirCharles Gordon chipped in seven.

Walker scored seven of his points in the second quarter, as the 5-foot-10 senior often answered a basket from Hoban.

"Jayson is our best player," Joyce II said. "If Jayson was 6-foot or 6-foot-1, he'd have a lot of Division I (colleges) interested because he can score the ball on anybody."

Gordon picked up a technical foul in the third quarter and was eventually ejected in the fourth quarter with two more technical fouls on one play.

And then in the postgame handshake like, the teams again exchanged words and administrators had to step in between the players to keep it from escalating. 

"There was a lot of talking going on (during the game)," Hoban head coach T.K. Griffith said. "But it's how you respond. You have to focus on just playing your game and playing it better. You know, we weren't playing really well. I think all of our energy needed to be directed at how to play better basketball. not how to respond to people who are talking crap to you or whatever."

As for the Knights in the game, Griffith wasn't sure what happened or how the emotions got out of check. After all, they had won four of their last six games, including a win over Centerville their last time out.

"It's weird because we were calm in practice yesterday, I thought we were calm in pregame walkthrough," Griffith said. "I felt like we were ready. I don't know what happened. We did not click and we played really bad offensively. We couldn't find the right chemistry offensively and then we couldn't stop them from scoring."

But Griffith didn't believe coming into the game as the defending state champions had anything to do with the team's performance, especially considering the gauntlet of a schedule STVM had already played.

"I think there might have been a different feel from the public," Griffith said. "But I knew who they played. They played St. Ignatius, Moeller, Reynoldsburg, Pickerington Central. Anybody who's kind of smart about basketball and understands their schedule would know.  Maybe the casual fan kind of thought, oh, yeah, you guys are getting them this year, but it doesn't work like that. You got to earn it. And they were pretty good. I thought they played pretty well tonight."

On the other side, Joyce II has been the defending state champion in seven of his matchups against Hoban. But he knew the shoe was on the other foot this time.

"All in all, they have a good team. Let's be real," Joyce II said. "They're defending state champs, not us. So this is a good win for us. You always want to win the rivalry games. And I thought we did a good job."

As for the team in blue and gold being the defending state champions and not his Fighting Irish, Joyce smiled.

"I don't even want to think about that," the head coach responded.

The players didn't have trouble thinking about it, however.

"We had to show them that if we had played them (in the playoffs), they wouldn't have won that state championship," Whorton said. "We had to show them we are the true kings of Akron and they can't mess with us."

-- Ryan Isley | ryan@scorebooklive.com | @sbliveoh

(Feature photo: STVM head coach Dru Joyce II talks to his team during a timeout in a win over Archbishop Hoban on January 5, 2024. Photo credit: Ryan Isley, SBLive Sports)