Saturday, January 20, 2001
St. Henry holds on to reach 'A' finals
By Ray Schaefer
Enquirer contributor
DAYTON — St.Henry coach Dave Faust would like to forget the last 2 1/2 minutes of Friday's Touchstone Energy Boys Ninth Region All “A” semifinal against Holy Cross.
But thanks to the Crusaders' defense and senior forward Nick Love, Faust has another game to help erase the memory. Love's 19 points and St. Henry's forcing three turnovers in the final minute led to a 65-60 Crusaders victory at Dayton High School.
St. Henry's reward: facing Newport Central Catholic, an 85-47 winner over Ludlow, for the title at 7:30p.m. today.
“If we play great defense, it'll be a great game,” Love said.
St.Henry (9-6) needed everything it had over the last two minutes to subdue a Holy Cross team that came back from an early 10-point
deficit to take a 57-56 lead with 2:33 left in the game.
In the end, St. Henry overcame Holy Cross senior forward Josh Beiting's career-high 34 points.
“We blew the lead,” Faust said. “We had no answer for (Beiting).”
But St.Henry did not blow the game.
Love gave the Crusaders the lead for good at 58-57 with 1:31 left. He stole a Holy Cross pass, scored and was fouled, then converted the free throw.
After a Holy Cross turnover, St. Henry senior forward Andrew Vieth scored with 1:04 left for a 60-57 advantage. Ray Arlinghaus' bucket with 46 seconds left made it 60-59.
Another 3-point play from Love made it 63-59 with 31.8 seconds to go. Beiting hit a free throw with 21.9 seconds remaining.
“We knew we needed a steal,” Love said.
And St. Henry got one.
With less than 10 seconds left, Holy Cross tried to put the ball in play next to the St. Henry bench. St. Henry junior forward Jeff Eisenmenger stole the ball and hit Vieth, whose layup with five seconds left closed the scoring.
Holy Cross coach Dan Trame took the blame for what happened.
“We were trying to get the ball up the sideline to call a timeout,” Trame said. “Our kids played their guts out to the last two minutes. Then I did a stinkin' job of coaching; we should have tried to get to the free throw line.”
Is Faust worried that his team left its emotion on the court Friday? Hardly.
“Let's put it this way,” he said. “When you're playing in the All "A' final and you can't get up for that game, you don't deserve to be on the floor.”
ST. HENRY (65) — Franks 4 0 9, Fabiani 3 1 8, Vieth 6 2 14, Love 7 3 19, Eisenmenger 2 3 7, McClure 1 2 5, Cook 1 0 3. Totals: 24 11 65.
HOLY CROSS (60) — Carr 3 0 8, Arlinghaus 4 0 10, Millay 1 0 2, Frommeyer 2 0 5, Beiting 12 10 34, Hinzman 0 1 1. Totals: 22 11 60.
St. Henry ....... 20 14 13 18—65
Holy Cross ....... 12 15 16 17—60
3-point goals: SH-Love 2, Franks, Fabiani, Cook, McClure; HC-Carr 2, Arlinghaus 2, Frommeyer. Records: SH 9-6, HC 5-9.
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St. Henry holds on to reach 'A' finals