Boys Basketball: Elyria Catholic rebounds from loss, rolls past Holy Name

ELYRIA — A fresh start led to some fresh energy for Elyria Catholic. After being handed their first loss of the season Tuesday against North Ridgeville, the Panthers came out firing against Holy Name, taking an early lead and never looking back to start North Coast Conference play with a 92-65 win Friday evening. "Last game we didn't have any energy starting out," said sophomore Jazear Terry, who led the Panthers with 21 points. "Coach really emphasized that the last few days in practice. We just picked it up in the first quarter and never stepped off the pedal. We were being unselfish and moving the ball around. It's a team game. We play better as a team. One-on-one stuff wasn't working on Tuesday, so we got back to it." Elyria Catholic (5-1, 1-0) has matched its win total from last season in just six games, doing so emphatically against Holy Name (1-5, 0-1). All seven lead changes and both ties came in the first 5:05. Once the Panthers took a two-possession lead at 14-10, Holy Name never regained the lead. The Panthers closed the quarter on a 12-4 run thanks largely to Terry, who scored four points during that span and eight for the quarter. Matisse Williams started finding his rhythm in the second quarter, scoring six of his eight first-half points. The junior finished the game with 14 and led the Panthers with six rebounds. He nailed a jumper in the final seconds to cap a run of four unanswered to push Elyria Catholic's lead to 43-37 at the half. "We had a tough game against North Ridgeville," Williams said. "We just worked really hard in practice, we had that on our minds all week, and I'm glad we came out here and brought a lot of energy." The Green Wave started 9-of-21 from 3-point range, but cooled off considerably in the second half as it went 1-of-21 from beyond the arc the rest of the way. "We adjusted our help defense," Elyria Catholic coach Jason Smith said. "We were being super aggressive in the gaps and we just adjusted the help defense to stick to those shooters and rely on our size inside. We just relied on that midline help and played good help defense. Once we took the lane away from them, it allowed us to contest the threes instead of scrambling the whole time. They knew what they had to do and they executed it well." Elyria Catholic took advantage of Holy Name's 3-point struggles as every miss seemed to ignite its transition game. Williams and Terry found each other for a few long passes that led to easy layups. The Panthers also got 39 points off their bench, with all but one player scoring five. That was Braden Oakes, who connected on a three after checking into the game in the final two minutes. Jaseer McElya put together a very efficient 13 points off the bench, 10 coming in the second half, going 5-of-6 from the field and 3-of-4 from the free throw line. "We knew they bring a very hard press and we knew if we tried to dribble through all of that it wasn't going to work out," Williams said. "We looked down the sidelines and middle so we could get easy layups in transition. I think we executed really well to get those fast-break points." Contact Chris Sweeney at (440) 329-7135 or ctsports@chroniclet.com. Follow him @CSweeney1686 on X. Elyria Catholic 92, Holy Name 65 HOLY NAME (65): Pat Kelley 1-2-4, Esdras Gonzalez 0-0-0, Brayden Heimann 1-2-5, Evan Stump 4-0-10, Carter Varga 1-2-4, Christopher Hyatt 3-0-7, Evan Stec 2-0-5, Joe Svetz 0-0-0, Kaleb Gariba 3-2-8, Logan DiMarino 2-0-4, Camron Leach 4-3-15, Landon Phelps 1-0-3. Totals 22-11-65. ELYRIA CATHOLIC (92): Dominique Stamper 3-1-7, Jazear Terry 10-1-21, Purvie Smallwood III 3-1-7, Matisse Williams 7-0-14, Donovan Shumpert 2-0-4, Jaseer McElya 5-3-13, Kingston Daniels 3-0-6, Ben Essenmacher 2-0-5, Robbie Duray 3-0-7, Braden Oakes 1-0-3, Jeremiah Benjamin 2-0-5. Totals 41-6-92. Holy Name&emsp;14&emsp;23&emsp;10&emsp;18&emsp;—&emsp;65Elyria Catholic&emsp;21&emsp;22&emsp;21&emsp;28&emsp;—&emsp;92 Three-point goals: Holy Name 10-42 (Leach 4, Stump 2, Heimann, Hyatt, Phelps, Stec), Elyria Catholic 4-8 (Benjamin, Duray, Essenmacher, Oakes). Field goals: Holy Name 22-63 (35 percent), Elyria Catholic 41-63 (65 percent). Free throws: Holy Name 11-16 (69 percent), Elyria Catholic 6-11 (55 percent). Rebounds: Holy Name 22 (Essenmacher 5), Elyria Catholic 33 (Williams 6). Total fouls: Holy Name 15, Elyria Catholic 18. Turnovers: Holy Name 13, Elyria Catholic 11. Junior varsity: Elyria Catholic, 51-38.