Boys basketball: Columbia closes strong to beat Brooklyn, advance to districts

COLUMBIA STATION — Tournament basketball is all about surviving and advancing, and that is exactly what the Columbia Raiders did in their Division III sectional final Friday night against the Brooklyn Hurricanes. Although the Raiders were outscored in the second and third quarters and made only one of their nine 3-point attempts over that 16-minute stretch, they got just enough offensive punch from Nathan Borling, Cody Davis and Reece Miller down the stretch to close out a 56-48 victory over the Hurricanes in front of their home fans. "Any time you win in the postseason, it's a good win," Columbia coach Josh Scharf said. "As we talked in the locker room, it's not a pretty film, but you survive and advance, and we get a chance to play Tuesday night. "That was a slugfest. Not in a dirty way, it was just back and forth the whole game. They got a lead, we'd make a run. Then they'd make a run. It was a lot of fun to coach. It was a great atmosphere. Our students showed up, our crowd showed up. They brought a great student section. It was a really good basketball game." Borling and Davis led the Raiders with 19 points each, while Miller added 10. Borling began heating up from the field when he knocked down two pullup jumpers from the free throw line in the final 2:38 of the third quarter, and that production was amplified in the fourth, as he scored 10 over the final eight minutes. "Nathan was huge for us tonight," Scharf said. "We get on him a lot to start attacking, especially the last two or three weeks. We've been working on two power dribbles and pull up from the elbow. "He made a couple of those late in the third, and that really started stretching their bigs to come out and guard him, which opened some stuff for Cody and Vincent (Berardi) on the inside to get some easy layups. When he gets going for us, it really stresses a defense and opens up everything else for us." With the Raiders clinging to a two-point lead at the start of the fourth quarter, Borling caught a pass from guard Owen Menge and buried a 3-pointer from the right wing. Then Borling gave the Raiders a four-point advantage when he converted a driving layup with 2:37 left in the fourth quarter. Borling later put the Raiders up 54-45 by knocking down a 3-pointer from the left wing before converting a driving layup in the final minute to seal the victory. Borling added five rebounds and four assists. "They had a guy really up on Reece," Borling said. "They had to take him away so he couldn't knock down the threes, and that opened up lanes for me. I was able to go downhill, get it to the rim, and when they collapsed on me, I was able to get it to Cody or Vince or whoever else to get open shots." Before Borling could deliver the knockout blows, Miller came up with the shot that sparked the rally. With 3:51 to go in the fourth quarter, the Hurricanes took a 45-42 lead, but on the ensuing possession Miller hit a pullup 3-pointer from well beyond the arc on the left wing to tie the score. After a timeout, the Raiders finished the game on an 11-3 run. "That was huge," Scharf said. "Reece is a 365-day basketball player. He's always working on his shot. That's a shot that I expect, nine out of 10 times, to go in. I think he expects it to go in 10 out of 10. When he's got space, I want him shooting that shot every time he has the ball. "It was a great shot. It does take some courage to be in that spot. You're either the hero or the goat, and tonight that shot sparked our run, and we ended up pulling out the win." Along with the solid late-game production, the Raiders really set themselves up for victory by dominating on the glass. The Raiders held a 48-28 edge in rebounds for the game, including a 16-5 advantage in the first quarter and 12-8 margin in the second. Davis led the Raiders with 12 rebounds, while Berardi pulled down 11 to go along with his four points.. "That was one of our four keys to the game," Scharf said. "We had to control the glass, both offensively and defensively. We made a concerted effort to send four guys to the glass and have one guy back in case they were leaking out. That was huge for us. We told them, 'We're going to shoot a lot of shots, but we need to control the offensive glass, and we absolutely have to hold them to one shot offensively.'" Davis added: "The rebounding advantage, honestly, might have won us the game. They had a big kid, but he definitely didn't rebound like me and Vince. We attacked the boards every single play, offensively and defensively, and that's how we were able to get a lot of our second-chance points and push the ball up the court so fast." The Raiders advanced to Tuesday night's district semifinal, where they will match up against the sixth-seeded Smithville Smithies at Richmond Heights High School. The Smithies were 62-32 winners over Beachwood on Friday. "It feels good," Davis said. "We made it here last year and we were upset by Norwayne. We're hoping to beat Smithville this year and make it to the district final. "It's definitely going to take a lot better game than this. We came off of a week stretch where we didn't play after playing last Friday against Oberlin. Especially coming off of a very high game like that, you're expecting the same thing. Coming out slow was hard, but we were able to battle back and get the win. We're definitely going to have to string a couple very good practices together and play to our caliber to beat Smithville." Scharf added: "Smithville's a very good basketball team. We've played them the last two years. Defensively, they're going to be really, really sound, really tough to play against. I like our chances. I think we're playing really good basketball right now, so it'll be a great test for us." Contact Matt Florjancic at 329-7135 or ctsports@chroniclet.com. Columbia 56, Brooklyn 48 BROOKLYN (48): Maceo Pytel 2-1-5, Jaiden Basinger 7-0-16, Jacob Sullivan 5-1-12, Luke Mackovjak 4-0-11, Jaiden Paschal 1-1-3, Jordan Fougerousse 0-1-1, Tyler Elholz 0-0-0. Totals 19-4-48.COLUMBIA (56): Nathan Borling 8-0-19, Vincent Berardi 2-0-4, Cody Davis 7-4-19, Owen Menge 1-0-2, Reece Miller 4-0-10, Frank Washburn 0-2-2, Drexton Friscone 0-0-0, Dante Cirigliano 0-0-0. Totals 22-6-56. Brooklyn&emsp;&emsp; 9&emsp;&emsp;13&emsp;&emsp;13&emsp;&emsp;13&emsp;&emsp;—&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;48Columbia&emsp;&emsp;14&emsp;&emsp;11&emsp;&emsp;12&emsp;&emsp;19&emsp;&emsp;—&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;56 Three-point goals: Brooklyn 6-26 (23.1 percent; Mackovjak 3, Basinger 2, Sullivan 1), Columbia 6-21 (28.6 percent; Borling 3, Miller 2, Davis 1). Field goals: Brooklyn 19-59 (32.2 percent), Columbia 22-53 (41.5 percent). Free throws: Brooklyn 4-8 (50 percent), Columbia 6-10 (60 percent). Rebounds: Brooklyn 28, Columbia 48. Turnovers: Brooklyn 9, Columbia 19.