Kenston’s veteran squad proved to be too much for Chagrin Falls as the Bombers cruised to a 66-48 road win over the Tigers on Tuesday.
“Kenston has a veteran team and our inexperience showed tonight,” said Chagrin Falls coach Dave Bargar. “We had five players making their first appearance on a varsity court and another four who played only limited minutes last year and now are counted on to play significant roles.”
Chagrin Falls got off to a slow start and never really settled in.
“I thought that we rushed a lot of things offensively early in the game and that can be attributed to our inexperience,” Bargar said. “I was disappointed that we didn’t do the things that we are good at much of the game. We need to do a better job of executing and playing to our strength on offense.”
Defensively, the Tigers struggled to slow down the hard-charging Bombers.
Kenston drained 10 3-pointers and outrebounded the Tigers, 50-19.
“They are a tough match for us with their size and ability to shoot the 3,” Bargar said. “We had too many breakdowns but I feel a lot of that was they always had a mismatch inside that they could exploit.”
Ryan Castelluccio led Chagrin Falls with 14 points and James Kosmides also scored in double figures with 11.
“I was encouraged that we battled late in the game and played with more energy. That should help us moving forward,” Bargar said. “Our message to the team was this game wasn’t going to define our season. Win or lose, we would be using this game as a stepping stone to get better.”
The rebound game was a struggle for @ChagrinAD and head coach Dave Bargar knows that’s an area that his team needs to improve on #NHBasketball pic.twitter.com/5oqYpZLZUs
— Ben Hercik (@BHercikNH) December 1, 2021