Beachwood, Ohio- The Beachwood Bison hosted the Notre Dame Cathedral Latin (NDCL) Lions in a non-conference battle Thursday night. This was the second night of the back-to-back for the Bison as they surged late last night for a 77-74 win over Padua.
NDCL started the game out strong and fast which surprised Bison head coach Dave Krasnow.
"We watched a lot of tape on NDCL and we thought they would slow the game down while we tried to keep the pace fast."
NDCL matched Beachwood's intensity with five different players scoring in the first quarter led by junior guard Holden Kajfasc and sophomore forward Connor Hernan each with four points. The Bison also had 5 different players score in the first quarter led by senior guard Nate Lurie with seven. The Bison finished the quarter with a 20-15 lead.
The second quarter was just as close as the first. Hernan added four more points in the quarter and received some scoring help form fellow Lion senior forward Noah Rogers. Rogers also added four points to keep the halftime deficit slim for NDCL. Senior Bison guard Marquis Pinkney gave the team a huge boost with two big team three pointers taking some of the focus off Lurie and showing how diverse Beachwood was with scoring. Beachwood would enter the half with a 32-26 lead.
NDCL came out the second half seemingly more focused on the defensive end. They forced the Bison into multiple turnovers and rushed shot attempts due to their full court pressure defense they were in for half of the third quarter. Their defense allowed them to trim the once six point deficit to a 37-37 tie with about 3:08 on the clock. The Bison would withstand this run with an 8-0 run of their own frustrating Lions head coach Pat Vuyancih causing him to call a timeout and rip into the players for their lack of effort on defense. This would be the ultimate deciding factor of the game.
In the fourth, the Lions tried to fight into the double digit deficit but in the end couldn't slow down the duo of Lurie and Bison senior forward Noah Page. Lurie finsihed with 27 points and Page finished with 19 leading the Bison to a 71-64 win over the Lions. Junior guard Evan Dugger of the Lions finished with a team high 21 points.
The Lions dropped their third straight game falling to a record of 3-4 while the Bison improve to 7-2 winning their sixth straight game.
I caught up with Beachwood coach David Krasnow after the game to get his thoughts on the win.
This game recap is brought to you by Mar-Lou Shoes
