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Crusaders open Tarquinio era with victory against HC

CADIZ — How you start a game isn’t always indicative of how you finish it.

Steubenville Catholic proved that Friday night.

The Crusaders came out flat, falling behind Harrison Central, 7-1, early in their mutual boys’ high school basketball opener. But they more then made up that deficit during the next 9 minutes, exploding for a 24-1 run en route to topping the Huskies, 46-28, inside the John W. Stephenson Center.

”It was nothing to do with me,” Chris Tarquinio, a winner in his Steubenville Catholic head coaching debut, said of the victory.

”It’s all about those kids. They worked their butts off. It’s about them not folding the tents early in what’s a hostile environment.

”This is always a tough place to play. I know (Harrison Central head coach) Justin (Clifford) from my (officiating) days and he always has his kids ready to play.”

Harrison Central, with three new faces in its starting lineup, jumped out to a six-point lead behind five points from veteran Tyler Redish.

That prompted Tarquinio to call a 30-second timeout.

”I just told them that, hey, we have to pick it up and play basketball like we know we can,” he said. ”We have to get that intensity back up to where we know it can be and they did.”

A Dom Argentine jumper sparked the spurt. In fact, as SCC closed the first quarter leading 11-7, six different players had already dented the scoring column, four hitting buckets and two canning free throws.

”Like I said, that run was all about the kids,” Tarquinio said. ”It was nothing about what I said. It was about those kids playing their butts off.”

Argentine made a layup to begin the second quarter. Then, Jake Bolger scored six of the Crusaders’ next nine points to increase the visitor’s bulge to 22-7. Free throws by Nate Klinosky and Bolger finished the run with Steubenville Catholic leading 25-11.

Clifford said missed shots were just the tip of the iceberg when it came to looking at reasons for his team’s early deficit.

”It’s attention to detail and that’s solely my fault,” he said. ”We couldn’t get lined up in the right spot, we couldn’t do anything and that’s on me. We weren’t prepared to play.”

As bad as things were going offensively for the Huskies, the Crusaders weren’t exactly scorching the nets. And in the third quarter, Steubenville Catholic went cold from the field, opening the door for the home team to make a run.

Caden Arbaugh and Chance Hursey started the second half with back-to-back layups. Later, the Huskies finished the quarter with a 6-0 run, keyed by five points from Logan Elliott, that brought Harrison Central’s deficit to under 10 heading into the final 8 minutes.

”We cut it to single digits heading into the fourth quarter and, again, we did the right things for a little bit, but we were trying to make a play and they beat us to every loose ball … they outhustled us.

”They were in the right spots, they out-everythinged us.”

Just as they’d done in the first quarter, the Crusaders stepped up when they had to, squashing the Huskies’ surge by scoring on six of its first seven possessions of the fourth quarter to grab a 44-28 lead. AJ Connor and Bolger ended the run with back-to-back triples.

”I called a time out again early in the fourth quarter and, again, they went out and did it,” Tarquinio said.

Bolger ended with 13 points, while Connor dropped in 11.

Redish, behind a pair of 3-pointers, finished with 10 points.

Catholic Central 46, Harrison Central 28

Catholic Central    11  16  3  16 — 46

Harrison Central    7  4  10  7 — 28

CATHOLIC CENTRAL: Connor 4 1-4 11, N.Klinosky 2 1-2 5, Bolger 5 2-2 13, Fowkes 0 1-2 1, Hurtzell 3 2-3 8, Zinno 0 2-2 2, DiBiase 1 0-0 2. TOTALS: 17 9-15 46. Connor 2, Bolger.

HARRISON CENTRAL: Arbaugh 3 0-0 6, Elliott 2 0-1 5, Hursey 1 0-1 2, Dalton 1 0-0 2, Barr 1 1-4 3, Sloan 0 0-0 0, Caldwell 0 0-0 0, Taylor 0 0-0 0, West 0 0-0 0, Redish 2 4-8 10. TOTALS: 10 5-14 28. 3-pointers: Redish 2, Elliott.

3-point goals: Connor (2), Bolger; Redish (2), Elliott.

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