The North Adams sectional win over Zane Trace was a memorable night for Devils’ junior Carson Osborne, who poured in a game-high 20 points, including four three-point goals. (Photo by Mark Carpenter)
North Adams downs Zane Trace to advance to districts
In his usual acrobatic style, North Adams junior Breestin Schweickart goes up for a shot in action from the Devils’ 73-55 win over Zane Trace in a Division III sectional championship game. Schweickart finished the game with 15 points. (Photo by Mark Carpenter)
By Mark Carpenter
People’s Defender
Fans of the 1974 film, “The Longest Yard”, are familiar with the “Mean Machine.” It is safe to say that this year’s North Adams Green Devils boys varsity squad could be deemed “The Green Machine.” On Saturday evening at Piketon High School, the North Adams machine continued to roll, right back into the Division III District Tournament.
The latest victims of the North Adams blitzkrieg were the Zane Trace Pioneers, who had the task of trying to slow down the Devils in a Division III sectional championship contest. It turned out to be “no contest” as the Devils came out of the gates firing at all cylinders, especially with a barrage of long distance artillery. On the strength of six first quarter three-pointers, the Devils built a 27-pointhalftime lead and though they slacked off a bit in the second half, they still had little trouble disposing of the Pioneers by a final score of 73-55.
The weekend victory gave Coach Nathan Copas his fifth sectional crown and will send the Devils to the Ohio University Convocation Center on a mission to defend their district championship from last season.
“We had a lot of energy in the first half,” said Coach Copas in his postgame radio interview. “We got out in transition, forced turnovers and everything was great. Zane Trace came out after halftime ready to play and we just got too passive. and got complacent with the big lead. I want us to play smart but all in all I’m happy for our kids, they got a sectional championship.”
The Pioneers led just once in Saturday’s one-sided battle, 1-0 after a free throw before the game even started on a technical foul assessed to North Adams after an error in the scorebook. That was the highlight for Zane Trace as they were soon hit with the full force of the Devils’ offense, led by the long distance heroics of junior guard Carson Osborne, who drilled a trio of three-point goal;s in the opening period. Add in another pair of triples from Bransyn Copas and another from Brestin Schweickart and it all added up to a 22-10 North Adams lead after the first quarter of action.
As if the opening eight minutes weren’t enough, the Green Devils went bombing in the second stanza, getting back to back threes form the exact same corner from Osborne and Cody Hesler. A steal and score by Jayce Rothwell was part of a 14-0 run and a dominant 36-11 advantage. Rothwell hit a three-pointer of his own late in the half and the Devils went to the intermission in from control, up 41-14.
Credit goes to the Pioneers, though, facing such an insurmountable deficit, they played a much better second half, outscoring the Devils by nine over the final 16 minutes. Zane Trace began the third quarter with a 7-2 run and eventually put up ,ore points in the third (22) than they had the entire first half. The Devils became a bit sloppy and lost a little of their first half intensity, much to the chagrin of Coach Copas, but if that was going to happen it was good to have it happen with a huge lead. North Adams did get another Schweickart three-pointer in the period and still led 57-36 as the fourth quarter commenced.
The final frame opened with a Schweickart bucket, but that was followed by a 7-0 Zane Trace run that cut the lead to 59-43 with 4:28 to play, giving the Pioneer fans a small glint of comeback hope. The Devils did manage to extinguish that hope with their own 5-0 spurt, including a third Schweickart three-pointer. All that was left now was for the time to wind down and the Devils to take the sectional crown and when Rothwell canned two free throws with 20.7 seconds left, business was taken care of and North Adams was cutting down the nets on their way back to the Convo and the district semi-finals.
It was Carson Osborne leading the North Adams offense with 20 points, a total that included four three-point goals. Breestin Schweickart added 15 points with a trio of three-pointers. Though he battled foul trouble most of the second half, Bransyn Copas still scored 14 with a pair of treys.
“Carson hit some big shots tonight and we hope that continues,” said Coach Copas. “That opens up a lot of other things for us.”
Zane Trace was led by 22 points from Landon Robinson, joined in double figures by Gunnar McCullough with 16 and Landen Jarrell with 10.
The Devils improved to 19-4 overall and will be back in action on the late shift at the Convo on Sunday, March 3. North Adams will face the Ironton Tigers in an 8:15 p.m. scheduled tip off. A Sunday night win will send the Devils back to the Division III district championship game for the second consecutive season.
“We’ll do a lot of conditioning this week in practice, that will be a priority with the bigger floor ahead at OU,” said Copas. “We’ve been there before which should help us and I hope that takes away the pressure so we can come out and put four quarters together. We’ll enjoy this one and then get back to work.”
Zane Trace
10 4 22 19 —55
North Adams
22 19 16 16 —73
Zane Trace (55): L. Jarrell 4 1-3 10, Houston 0 2-2 2, Rippeth o 1-2 1, B. Jarrell 1 0-0 2, Robinson 9 0-1 22, Langley 1 0-0 2,
McCullough 6 4-5 16, Team 21 8-13 55.
N. Adams (73): Rothwell 4 3-6 12, Hesler 2 0-0 5, Copas 3 6-9 14, Osborne 8 0-0 20, Schweickart 6 0-1 15, Young 3 1-1 7, Team 26 10-16 73.
Three-Point Goals:
Z. Trace (5)- Robinson 4, L. Jarrell 1
N. Adams (11): Rothwell 1, Copas 2, Osborne 4, Schweickart 3, Young 1
