JEFFERSON—Jefferson used a dominating second half to pull away from visiting Madison in a Chagrin Valley Conference Lake Division showdown on Tuesday.
The Falcons held a 25-20 lead at the break then outscored the Blue Streaks in the second half, 31-16.
With the win, Jefferson improved to 5-4 in league play with all four of those losses coming by eight points or fewer, including two blown fourth-quarter leads.
“If we lose, I think we’re out of the discussion for the conference title,” said Jefferson head coach Rob Pisano. “I told our guys we’re not out of the equation yet. It’s a tall task to try and win out and get to 10-4 in the conference. If you look at all of our remaining schedule–Geneva, Madison, Perry, Edgewood, and Jefferson–I think we got a real shot to make some headway.”
Jefferson’s win avenged a 57-56 loss at Madison on Jan. 5 when the Falcons couldn’t protect a 15-point lead. Two days later, the Falcons gave up a four-point lead with seconds remaining in regulation before dropping a double overtime game to Edgewood.
“We allowed Madison to get back into the game at their place, everyone knows how the Edgewood game ended, and we gave up a six-point lead to Perry. We haven’t been able to finish games,” Pisano said. “I was glad we were able to close it out tonight; it helped being at home.”
That wasn’t the only breakthrough for Jefferson.
A team that is missing one of its primary ball handlers and scorers in Josue Padilla has made it challenging at times for the Falcons to produce points outside of standouts Joey DeGeorge and Anthony Covetta.
But, tonight was different as Dylan Beede finished with a game-high 19 points on 7-of-8 shooting from the field while connecting on three 3-pointers in the second quarter to lead the Falcons’ surge into halftime.
Three more players stepped up big-time, more so on defense than in the scorebook.
At one point, Robbie Pisano, Joel Navarro, and Terry Brown were tasked with guarding Madison standout J.P. Dragas.
“I thought we executed our defensive game plan really well because of those guys; I complimented them in the locker room,” Pisano said of his players. “We set it up as a double team with any two of the three guys at the volleyball line and made him get rid of the ball.”
DeGeorge finished the night with another double-double hauling in 10 rebounds and scoring 17 points. Anthony Covetta joined the double-double party pitching in with 13 points and 12 rebounds with three steals.
Despite how strong the second half was, it didn’t come without its challenges.
Jefferson at one point held a 40-24 lead before a 10-2 Madison run closed the third quarter and cut that 16-point lead in half.
Jefferson responded with a dominating 14-2 fourth-quarter advantage while forcing a 0-of-12 shooting performance out of Madison to seal the deal for their seventh win of the year.
“They responded very well,” Pisano said. “We had them down 15 at their place and let them back into the game. Being able to close this one out was huge for the guys.”
Caleb Wesler finished with three points and both Brown and Robbie Pisano contributed with two each to help the Falcons’ cause.
Jefferson can avenge their early season conference losses over the next few weeks to potentially shake up the standings with home contests against the top teams in the conference with Perry and Edgewood and one road date with Geneva.
Madison dropped to 10-5 overall and 6-3 in league play following the loss to Jefferson.
“Jefferson did a great job with their defense in the second half,” said Madison head coach Nick Gustin. “They really took us out of it, and we didn’t respond very well. Unfortunately, in the CVC, if you don’t respond well bad things will happen.”
The first quarter started off strong for Madison with Seth Negin connecting on two triples to lead the Blue Streaks to a 12-8 lead into the second period. That became difficult to come by for the continuation of the game for Gustin and his team.
“The other guys on the team have to create and make shots. They did that well in the first half,” Gustin said. “We didn’t capitalize when we had the numbers in transition. We got good looks, and we just couldn’t make shots.”
Noah Crites and Dragas led Madison in scoring with eight points each, while both Mac Steel and Bryant Perkins scored four points. Noah Barnes, Ryan Radkowski, and Dom Magda, each finished with two points.
Madison hosts Conneaut on Friday while Jefferson hosts Edgewood.
