PAINESVILLE—Third-seeded Harvey entered Friday’s Division II sectional championship game with a pair of regular season wins over visiting Geneva, the No. 6 seed.
But, they don’t call it March Madness because games always turn out the way they’re seeded.
The Eagles forgot all about those double-digit losses to the Red Raiders and scored a 45-40 upset win over their hosts.
“We knew coming in we were dealing with a really tough squad,” Geneva coach Eric Bowser said. “They’ve beat us twice already this year by double digits so we knew we were going to have to come out and bring energy and play on the defensive end. I think the guys did that and showed up.”
The Eagles led 13-9 after the first quarter and 34-23 at halftime.
Geneva outscored Harvey in the second half, 24-17, to seal the win.
“We were able to take advantage of a couple missed shots, a couple of mistakes and made some good buckets on the backside and got the job done,” Bowser said. “We made some changes at halftime, just small things, subtle things, where they were taking advantage of getting (Roderick Coffee) off for some good shots and he was knocking them down. We were able to do some switching and some double-teaming to try and take him away a little bit. I think we did that with some success. Fortunately, they weren’t really hitting their 3s tonight, which helped us out. Those two things together were able to get us over the hump.”
Nick Stoltz led the Eagles with 14 points and Brandon Smith and Grant Mihalick also scored in double figures with 12 points each.
Those three also keyed the Eagles on the defensive end.
“The defensive effort was great with Brandon Smith, Nick Stoltz and Grant Mihalick,” Bowser said. “I can’t say enough about a couple of guys that came off the bench. Dawson Schafer did an absolutely tremendous job on the floor defending their guards. He moves his feet and he works so hard every time he’s out there. I can’t say enough about those guys.”
Bishop Thomas led Harvey with 18 points while Coffee finished with 14.
The Red Raiders closed out the season with a 16-7 record.
“We wanted to execute but I don’t think we executed,” Harvey coach Dave Wojciechowski said. “We wanted to play solid half-court defense and I think we did that for the most part in holding them to 40-some points. We just didn’t score the ball and we got outworked today. It’s disappointing. It’s a tough loss today.”
The Eagles, who improved to 15-8, will play No. 2 seed Lake Catholic in a district semifinal at Lakeside High School on March 7.
“This is great for our seniors,” Bowser said. “It’s the first time they’ve been to the districts and hopefully we can keep this rolling and take another game or two.”
Geneva 45, Harvey 40
Geneva (15-8): Schafer 6, Stoltz 14, Varckette 1, Mihalick 12, B. Smith 12
Harvey (15-8): Davis 8, Coffee 14, Thomas 18
Geneva 13 21 12 12 — 45
Harvey 9 14 10 7 — 40
Free throws: Harvey 4 of 8, Geneva 8 of 15; 3-pointers: Harvey 4 (Davis 2, Coffee 2), Geneva 5 (Mihalick 2, Schafer, Stoltz, Smith).
