Geneva gets physical, stops W&J
Though Thursday night’s game between host Washington & Jefferson and Geneva, which was for the catbird seat in the Presidents’ Athletic Conference standings, was competed on the hardwood of the spacious Salvitti Family Gymnasium, it could have been mistaken for the gridiron because of the physical nature of the contest.
According to Presidents coach Ethan Stewart-Smith, his team seemed to run from the physicality while the Golden Tornadoes (6-2, 9-4) embraced it as they moved into a first-place tie with Washington and Jefferson (6-2, 9-4) by virtue of a hard-fought 77-67 victory.
Ryan Rachic led all scorers as he tallied 20 points for Geneva. Isaac Massie chipped in 17 while Trevor Tipton and Jonathan Bertkovich contributed 11 and 10 points, respectively.
Kyran Mitchell and South Fayette graduate Brando Jakiela paced the Presidents with 18 points apiece while Michael Bigley scored 12 in the loss.
“We’re not going to do well if we don’t have more guys in double-figures pointswise,” Stewart-Smith added. “They (Geneva) seemed to play through the physical play. We did not.”
The Golden Tornadoes raced out to an early 16-5 lead thanks to some stifling defense that seemed to take the Presidents out of their offensive flow. Jakiela helped buoy the hosts with 10 points off the bench. Tipton led Geneva with nine points in the game’s opening half.
Washington & Jefferson cut the deficit to one twice in the first half, but timely buckets by the Golden Tornadoes helped stave off the Presidents as they carried a 38-34 lead into the halftime locker room.
The Presidents made a concerted effort to get work done inside via Mitchell, who bulled his way to the bucket time and again to help keep the hosts close. His eight points in the opening five minutes of the second half kept the Presidents within shouting distance as they trailed 50-46.
But the Golden Tornadoes responded with a 6-0 run to push the lead to 10 midway through the second half. Geneva continued to beat the at times sluggish Presidents to loose balls that kept possessions alive for the visitors.
A Jakiela layin cut the Geneva advantage to 58-52 with 7:30 left. Bigley drew the Presidents even closer with a putback a the 6:45 mark slicing the lead to 59-54. The deficit shrank to three when Matt Seidl scored a bucket from in close. But a Bertkovich three-ball and a Massie mid-range shot pushed the Geneva lead to 68-56 with less than four minutes remaining.
A J.R. Mazza three cut the Golden Tornadoes’ lead to 68-61 before a Rachic layin pushed the lead back to nine with 90 seconds remaining. Rachic scored again to maintain a nine point lead after two Jakiela free throws cut it to seven in the contest’s waning moments.
Geneva then went about closing out the contest on the foul line
The Presidents were ice-cold from behind the three-point line, shooting two-for-12 from beyond the arc.
“Our game is more of a spread it out and scramble,” Stewart-Smith added. “We like to press too, but were not able to turn them over as much as we’d like.”
Washington & Jefferson did limit Lyle Tipton, who was averaging 26.1 points per game entering Thursday’s contest, to a mere eight points. A fact that was not lost on Geneva coach Jeff Santasiero.
“Our leading guy was held to eight points, but we had some nice balance to even that out,” he added. “We did a real nice job there spreading out the scoring.”