• Follow us on Twitter @buckeyeplanet and @bp_recruiting, like us on Facebook! Enjoy a post or article, recommend it to others! BP is only as strong as its community, and we only promote by word of mouth, so share away!
  • Consider registering! Fewer and higher quality ads, no emails you don't want, access to all the forums, download game torrents, private messages, polls, Sportsbook, etc. Even if you just want to lurk, there are a lot of good reasons to register!

Canal Winchester World Harvest Prep (Columbus, OH)

Jump to latest Follow Reply
Sort by date Sort by votes
Dispatch

2/8/06

FISHER CATHOLIC 56 | HARVEST PREP 53

Fisher Catholic finishes off Harvest Prep, stays unbeaten

Wednesday, February 08, 2006

Steve Blackledge
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

20060208-Pc-B8-0300.jpg
</IMG> WILL SHILLING | FOR THE DISPATCH Fisher Catholic’s Jared Lineberger, left, and Greg Connell sandwich Harvest Prep’s Quinton Aden. Connell scored 15 points in Fisher Catholic’s 56-53 win.


LANCASTER, Ohio — The Fisher Catholic boys basketball team is what it is.

"We’re not going to run up and down the floor and get 80 points," Irish senior point guard Greg Connell said. "With us, it’s all about composure, ball security and solid fundamentals. We like to keep games in the 50s to mid-50s, try to get the other team to play our game and pull it out in the end.

It’s not always pretty, but it works."
In a nutshell, Connell summed up Fisher Catholic’s 56-53 win over visiting Harvest Prep last night that gave the Irish a two-game lead in the Mid-State League Cardinal Division with just three to play.

Just as important, the Irish (16-0, 11-0) took a big step toward becoming the first team in school history to finish unbeaten in the regular season.

"This is just the kind of game I expected it to be," Fisher coach Tracy Blevins said. "With us being undefeated, everybody is jacked up to beat us.

For Harvest Prep, this was their championship game. I can’t begin to say how proud I am of the effort our guys gave not only physically, but mentally. We played like champions when we needed to."

Harvest Prep (11-4, 9-2) took a 50-46 lead with 3:50 left on successive driving layups by Quinton Aden and Nehemiah Trotter.

MSL Cardinal champion or co-champion seven of the past eight seasons, Fisher answered with a 10-0 burst during which the Warriors came apart at the seams.

Connell assisted Bleu George on a three-point basket to regain the lead with 2:50 left, then intercepted an inbounds pass and scored to make it 53-50.
Harvest Prep turned the ball over four times in a matter of one minute.

"These kids just refuse to lose," Blevins said. "Whenever we’ve needed a play all season, somebody has done it and it’s been somebody different almost every game. We won’t have anybody make All-Ohio this year, but the kids are fine with that. They like the way we’re getting it done."

Connell scored 15 points and George 11. Each made three three-point shots. Aaron Shonk and Michael Vajen had 10 points each.

One of the unsung heroes for the Irish was center Jared Lineberger, who at 6 feet 2 drew the assignment of guarding 7-1 sophomore B.J. Mullens.

The Ohio State recruit had 18 points and 15 rebounds but sat out large chunks of the game because of foul trouble. He was called for going over the back four times.
"That’s a pretty big task guarding a guy so huge," Lineberger said. "We were just trying keep him out of the lane and get rebounding position on him. You may not be as big as somebody, but you can still outhustle him."

[email protected]
Click to expand...
 
Upvote 0
Dispatch

3/8/06

BOYS BASKETBALL

Mullens extends Harvest Prep’s run

Wednesday, March 08, 2006

Steve Blackledge
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

20060308-Pc-F4-0400.jpg

JAMES D . DeCAMP | DISPATCH PHOTOS ABOVE: Harvest Prep’s B.J. Mullens, who has committed to Ohio State, rises above Columbus Academy’s Scott Jaffee to shoot during their district semifinal last night. Mullens scored 23 points.
20060308-Pc-F4-0500.jpg

Wellington’s Sean McCants fouls Worthington Christian’s Brian Hecker on Hecker’s layup attempt during the second quarter.


For a Columbus Academy team with no player taller than 6 feet 2, scaling Mount Mullens proved an impossible feat.

The long arms of B.J. Mullens, a 7-1 sophomore who has orally committed to Ohio State, seemed to be everywhere for Harvest Prep last night as it hung on for a 72-63 victory over Columbus Academy in a Division IV district semifinal in the Ohio Expo Center Coliseum.

Although still a work in progress, Mullens was even more valuable than his 23 points, 13 rebounds, six blocks and four assists might suggest. Whenever the perimeter-oriented Vikings thought about venturing into the paint, they got swatted or reconsidered.

"It’s great to have that size on the back end, but I guess that’s stating the obvious," Harvest Prep coach David Mobley said. "Tonight was an example of how far B.J. has come. Last year, he blocked a shot and still found a way to foul the guy.

His positioning is a lot better now, and it’s made him much more dangerous."

The third-seeded Warriors (18-4), who had never won a tournament game until two weeks ago, will face Worthington Christian for a district title at 6:30 p.m. Saturday.

"The sky’s the limit for us," Mullens said. "I wouldn’t say this was our best game. We’re a young team and we learn stuff in every game. Tonight was no different."

The Warriors, who led by 25 late in the first half, withstood a valiant rally by the Vikings (13-9).

Led by sophomore Chris Crockett, who scored 17 of his 26 points in the fourth quarter, Academy whittled the margin to 66-61 with 1:06 remaining, but two blocks by Mullens at key junctures averted the threat.

"We’re young and sometimes that inconsistency hits you when you don’t want it," Mobley said. "We had to weather quite a run, but the bottom line is we did and we’re moving on."

Chris Jones couldn’t explain why his Academy team fell behind 25-10 after one quarter and 38-15 at halftime before waking up.

"We came out kind of sleepwalking," Jones said. "We turned it up defensively the second half and made a pretty good run at them. The problem is you can’t take back 25-point deficits."

Remon Nelson had 19 points and Darius Randall 13 for Harvest Prep, which has dropped only two games since Christmas — both to 20-1 Fisher Catholic (50-46 and 56-53). Worthington Christian 88, Wellington 52
Driving through the lane at will, top-seeded Worthington Christian (17-6) walloped eight-seeded Wellington (11-10) to reach the district final.

Jason Dawson scored 20 points and Chris Beals 19 to pace the Warriors, who closed the first quarter with a 20-4 run and never looked back.

"We have a lot of guys who can attack the paint by the dribble or the pass," Worthington Christian coach Kevin Weakley said. "The Buckeyes are a team that share the ball and we’d sure like to emulate what they do."

Dawson, who also had five assists, said, "At the beginning of the game, there was a hole in the middle of the floor and we tried to exploit that. In the second half, they sagged in more, but we’ve got the shooters to make them pay for that."

On defense, the Warriors trapped the ball and tried to deny Wellington standout Sean McCants, the area’s leading scorer at 29.2 points per game, open-court opportunities.

"We just didn’t want to let him beat us by himself," Weakley said.

McCants led the Jaguars with 19 points and 10 rebounds but was just 8 of 23 from the field.

His counterpart, district player of the year Beals, also struggled from the floor, hitting 7 of 19. The two guarded one another much of the game.

"We knew that Worthington Christian was a fine-tuned machine that goes 12 deep and that allows them to trap you and play very physical," Wellington coach Brian McCants said.

Worthington Christian outrebounded Wellington 52-36.

[email protected]
Click to expand...
 
Upvote 0
Dispatch

3/12/06

BOYS BASKETBALL | DIVISION IV DISTRICT

Worthington Christian draws on experience

Sunday, March 12, 2006

Bill Rabinowitz
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH




Worthington Christian was the top seed, a five-time Central District champion dominated by seniors.

Harvest Prep entered this season with one tournament victory in its history and starts three sophomores and a freshman.

Yet before defeating Harvest Prep 57-53 in a Division IV district championship game last night, it was Worthington Christian that felt as if it were David armed with only a slingshot.

"I told God before the game: ‘This is Goliath. I really need some strength here,’ " Worthington Christian senior Joel Walton said.

Walton was referring to B.J. Mullens, Harvest Prep’s 7-foot-1 sophomore phenom, whom Walton shared duties guarding.

"I’ve never stood next to anybody that big," said Walton, who is charitably listed at 6-3.

But that prayer could have applied to Worthington Christian’s task all night.

The game pitted two teams nicknamed Warriors, and last night both were aptly named. In the end, though, Worthington Christian’s experience proved decisive.

Harvest Prep led for the game’s first 28 minutes. Every time Worthington Christian got close, Harvest Prep would answer.

"We had a timeout," Worthington Christian guard Chris Beals said, "and when we got in the huddle, I said I could remember against Watterson and DeSales that we were down by a bigger margin and that we had to play with the same intensity."

It helped that Harvest Prep had to go without Mullens for big stretches because of foul trouble. With Mullens on the bench with four fouls, Worthington Christian got its first lead when Jason Dawson scored on a three-point play to make it 49-48 with 3:47 left.

Mullens then re-entered the game, made two free throws and then slammed home an offensive rebound to put Harvest Prep back ahead.

But Worthington Christian then regained the lead for good. Beals sank a three-point basket with 2:25 left and then drew Mullens’ fifth foul on a threepoint play with 47 seconds left to make it 55-51.

"Seniors always find a way to win," Harvest Prep coach David Mobley said. "There’s wisdom in experience. It showed tonight."

Worthington Christian has been on the other side. The past two years, it lost in the district final.

"I definitely think the last two years were trials that made us stronger," Beals said.

Beals, a 6-foot guard, finished with 22 points after having only five at halftime.
Mullens scored 20 points for Harvest Prep, but Worthington Christian made him work hard for every one. Its post players denied him position in the paint, and he made only 4 of 15 fieldgoal attempts.
Click to expand...
 
Upvote 0
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top