CHAGRIN FALLS–Turnovers played a key role in Twinsburg’s 67-41 win at Chagrin Falls on Tuesday.
Twinsburg took advantage of several early miscues to build a 16-8 first quarter lead and the host Tigers never recovered.
“We had way too many turnovers today, that was the biggest thing,” Chagrin Falls coach Dave Bargar said. “We missed some easy shots early but I think the biggest thing for us today is we turned the ball over way too many times that led to easy baskets for them. We weren’t able to use our zones that we like to do throughout the course of the game and they shot the ball really well today. That was pretty much the biggest impact, I thought the turnovers.”
Chagrin Falls nearly played Twinsburg even in the second quarter but still trailed 32-22 at halftime. Twinsburg extended its lead to 49-30 after the third quarter of play.
“We knew Twinsburg was a very good team,” Bargar said. “They’re very disciplined, they play great defense and shoot the ball well, but we thought if we played our brand of basketball, and that is to control the game defensively with our tempo and executed our offense, then we thought we were going to be in the game the entire way.”
The Tigers put together several runs to close the gap but Twinsburg responded to each one with a run of its own.
“We’re a young team,” Bargar said. “We’re starting two sophomores and we only have three guys that have any varsity experience from last year, so it’s a process for our guys to go through. As much as the coaches want to rush the process, it doesn’t happen overnight. We just have to go out there and go through the games and see what happens. Hopefully, our guys learn as we go forward and it helps us down the line because that was a really good team we played tonight.”
Jenson Yonker led Chagrin Falls with 15 points. Xavier Perez added six and Cam Owen and Cole Weiss each contributed with four points.
With the loss, the Tigers dropped to 1-1 on the year heading into Chagrin Valley Conference play on Friday at home against Beachwood.
“Our expectations are always high,” Bargar said. “We expect to compete within our league and I think we’re going to do that. We just have to make sure our guys know the things we are expecting them to do are reasons we can win. That’s the biggest thing we’re fighting right now as a coaching staff is that the guys, since they are young, they haven’t seen the success yet. Once they can see the success, I think we’ll be in good shape.”
