Cambridge eliminates Big Red again
Steubenville struggles from all areas during 58-41 defeat
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STEUBENVILLE -- Cambridge knew exactly what it was doing when deciding where to place itself in the Division II East district tournament.
The Bobcats, who are the ninth seed, purposely chose to travel to No. 2 Steubenville Wednesday night because of a more favorable matchup. They eliminated Big Red last season, and Wednesday almost was a mirror-like image.
"We came down here last year, and our kids are comfortable here. We know their style that we're going to get," Cambridge head coach Andy Slaughter said. "It's no disrespect to them whatsoever. We just feel like our schedule prepares us to play them and their style. We just played Dover on Saturday, and we feel like their physicality and style prepared us to come here and play Steubenville."
Everything that made Big Red a force to be reckoned with all season long was not there. Rebounding was down, shooting was off, the turnover to assist ratio was not great and running in transition was limited. The Bobcats hit all of the right buttons in seemingly cruising to a 58-41 victory.
"We didn't knock down any shots. We were stagnant on offense. That's not the way we like to play," Steubenville head coach Mike Haney said. "Against a 1-2-2 packed-in zone, you shouldn't turn the ball over.
"They're probably the tallest team we've faced. Sometimes our guards got down there, but then they would block our shots. They did a good job."
The Bobcats (8-9) advance to the sectional final at 7 p.m. Saturday at fifth-seeded East Liverpool (81-68 winners over No. 18 Philo).
Big Red (16-7) scored the first bucket of the contest, then Cambridge led, 12-3, at the conclusion of the opening period. It later took a 16-3 advantage midway through the second.
Steubenville fought back with a 7-0 scoring run where it ran in transition and made it a full-court game. Following a Cambridge timeout, it turned it back to a mid-court contest and led, 19-10, at the break.
"We called a timeout and just said to slow the pace and tempo down," Slaughter said regarding the Big Red scoring run. "We got a 3-point shot right after that to stop the run. We gave them three live ball turnovers (during the run), and that's what we didn't want to give them.
"The keys to the game were boxing out, don't have live ball turnovers and make them play half court on both ends. And, we did all of those."
The Bobcats then came out of the locker room on fire, sprinting to a 12-4 scoring run to the 4:40 mark of the third and led, 31-14. All of their points came from four straight 3-pointers by three different players. They hit five 3s overall in the third and led, 37-24, going into the fourth.
Cambridge later built its advantage to 49-29 with a little more than two minutes remaining before Steubenville cut it to 49-37 at the 1:50 mark.
From that point on, the Bobcats never let their lead dwindle any further. Overall, they finished 23 of 27 from the foul line and only missed one in the final two minutes.
"Our goal was to get to the free-throw line," Slaughter said. "We knew they were going to pressure us and were going to be on us. We did a great job of stepping up and knocking them down. That's the difference in the game."
Each team committed 16 turnovers. Big Red only grabbed 21 rebounds, which is well below its season average and two less than the Bobcats. It went 9 of 13 from the charity stripe and only knocked down a pair of 3s, compared to seven by Cambridge.
"They got everybody back. They have the size, and that advantage hurt us a little bit," Haney said. "They packed it in inside, and that's what their supposed to do with that zone. The length hurt us. We made only two 3-pointers against a packed-in zone. You need to make the 3s to extend the zone. With their size, we couldn't get many offensive boards."
Cambridge's Dominic Cork, a 6-foot-6 senior, compiled 17 points and 13 rebounds, both game highs. Brock Valentine, a 6-5 senior, had 12 points, including a cool 6 of 6 from the line. Colton Slaughter, another 6-5 senior, scored 10 points (7 of 8 free-throw shooting). Caleb Campbell produced 13 points, four rebounds and six assists. Sean Perkins added six points and seven dimes.
For Steubenville, Quinn McCoy had 11 points and five rebounds. Chase Zimmerman also dropped 11 points. Zion Sawyer scored a team-high dozen. Phaeton Hill and Brenton Jones, Big Red's second- and third-leading scorers, each made one free throw. Jones did pull down seven boards.
"We told them that there are only four teams in Ohio that's going to end on a happy note. Unfortunately, we didn't have any plans on losing this early, but we didn't make our shots and they did," Haney said. "We've struggled the last seven game shooting. Besides the (Edison) game, we haven't been able to shoot our outside shots very well. You get to tournament time, you can't miss your shots or turn it over.
"The eight seniors, I love them and they gave everything they had all year. They came to work every day in practice and got after it. We'll miss them. They represented their school and everybody."
Out of the eight seniors, one of them is Cade Kernahan, who played for the first time in nearly a month due to a right knee injury.
Cambridge 58, Steubenville 41
Cambridge 12 7 18 21 -- 58
Steubenville 3 7 14 17 -- 41
CAMBRIDGE (8-9): Bond 2 7-8 13; Moore 0 0-1 1; Perkins 1 4-4 6; Cork 5 5-6 17; Valentine 3 6-6 12; Slaughter 3 1-2 10; Feldner 0 0-0 0; Long 0 0-0 0; Campbell 0 0-0 0; Polasky 0 0-0 0; Parsons 0 0-0 0; Smith 0 0-0 0. TOTALS: 14, 23-27: 58.
STEUBENVILLE (16-7): Sawyer 5 2-2 12; Gresko 0 0-0 0; Hill 0 1-2 1; Jones 0 1-2 1; McCoy 5 1-1 11; Buggs 0 0-0 0; Kernahan 0 0-0 0; Zimmerman 4 2-4 11; Rook 1 0-0 3; Thompson 0 0-0 0; Hopkins 0 0-0 0; Pierce 0 2-2 2; Vostatek 0 0-0 0; Sims 0 0-0 0. TOTALS: 15, 9-13: 41.
3-POINT GOALS: Cambridge 7 (Bond 2, Cork 2, Slaughter 3); Steubenville 2 (Zimmerman, Rook). REBOUNDS: Cambridge 23 (Cork 13); Steubenville 21 (Jones 7). ASSISTS: Cambridge 14 (Perkins 7); Steubenville 6 (Sawyer 2, Hill 2). TURNOVERS: Cambridge 16; Steubenville 16.