A District Three-Peat for the Devils!

By Mark Carpenter

People’s Defender

The Convocation Center at Ohio University seems to have become a second home to the North Adams Green Devils. For the third consecutive season, this time under the leadership of first-year head coach Austin McCormick, the Devils are leaving “The Convo” with district championship hardware in their possession along with another trip to the Sweet 16.

The Devils traveled to the Convo on Saturday, March 2 and standing in the way of the district three-peat was a familiar foe, coach Josh Arey and his Peebles Indians. The two teams had met twice in the regular season with North Adams winning both by nine-point margins and this was their first postseason meeting since a 2015 sectional final. There were five games at the Convo on Saturday and by far the biggest crowd of the day belonged to North Adams-Peebles.

As for the game itself, it was controlled by the Green Devils. A 12-0 run to end the first quarter gave North Adams the lead for good and from there they continued to roll, eventually moving to the Sweet 16 with a 65-45 win over their county rival.

“With this group returning, we set our standards high and it was our goal to get here,” commented Coach McCormick in his postgame radio spot. “These kids have worked their tails off and I’m proud of each and every one of them. It makes our job so much easier when you have kids with this much experience, who have been there before.”

“We shot it well today and we hoped to attack the paint and play inside-out basketball. Peebles is such a well-coached team and they’re young and I think they will be back here a lot in the next few years, but I’m super happy to get out with a win today.”

The game plan for anyone battling the Devils is to just try to slow down the pace of the game and keep them from racing up and down the court and for the most part, the Indians accomplished that task and forced the Devils into a halfcourt game. Unfortunately for the Indians, however, North Adams was very efficient in their halfcourt sets, getting the ball to the rim often for close range shot attempts. Early in the first period, the two teams swapped three-point goals, Konnor Rogers for the Devils and Josh McClary for Peebles, and after a bucket by Hayden Browning, the Tribe held a 7-5 advantage with 4:45 to play in the frame.

That turned out to be the high point for Peebles as they went scoreless the remainder of the first quarter while the Devils reeled off 12 straight, getting a pair of three-balls in that span, another from Rogers and one from Carson Osborne in the final second as North Adams turned a two-point deficit into a double digit lead at 17-7.

The Indians broke their scoring drought with two Browning free throws on their first possession of the second stanza but they couldn’t slow down the Devils, who scored on their first four possessions, a triple by Osborne and a Carson Davis stickback making it 26-11. Later in the second, the two sides again exchanged threes, Connor Young for North Adams and Garrett Shiveley for Peebles, as the North Adams lead remained safe at 31-16.

Back to back baskets from Grady Knechtly and McClary pulled Peebles within 33-20, but the second quarter ended the same way the first had, an Osborne three-pointer that sent the Devils to the break with a 38-20 lead.

The intermission did nothing to slow down the Devils’ attack as they opened the third quarter on a 9-2 run, getting a third Rogers three-point goal plus three baskets from Breestin Schweickart on his way to a game-high 28. Schweickart went beyond the arc later for a triple that put his team up 50-24 before the Indians showed some grit with a 6-0 spurt, two from Browning and four from Carson Reed, but when Schweickart hauled in an offensive board and converted, the Devils were just eight minutes from a three-peat, up 52-30.

Schweickart continued to heat up the Convo, beginning the final quarter with the “hoop and harm” to extend the lead out to 25. Peebles’ Reed matched that with an “and one” of his own and later, fueled by another Browning three, the Indians got an 9-1 run to make it 60-43, but the clock was rapidly winding down on the Indians’ season. The final point for the Tribe came on a free throw from senior Kash Hayslip, but it was the Devils who climbed the ladders and cut down the nets for the third season in a row, claiming the district crown with the 20-point victory.

The district winners, now 20-5 overall, were led again by the red-hot Breestin Schweickart’s 28 points as the senior guard is averaging 27 a game over the last four North Adams outings, three of those being postseason wins. Two other Devils reached double figures, Konnor Rogers with 13 and Carson Osborne with 11. The Devils always seem to shoot the ball well at OU and on Saturday they drilled eight three-point goals, three each from Rogers and Osborne, to help secure their trip to the Division VI regionals.

“My sophomore year we made it here and were just happy to be here and we ended up winning and we’ve just kept it up,” said the senior Schweickart during the postgame celebration. “It’s tournament time and it’s my last year and I know that if I don’t score for us we will probably struggle so I just go out and play hard because I don’t want this season to end.”

Senior point guard Jayce Rothwell may be the unsung hero of this North Adams team and he also spoke about his feelings during the district celebration.

“It’s awesome just being able to say you played at the Convo, all the stories we’ll be able to tell our kids someday,” said Rothwell. “Most importantly, we just have to thank God for these opportunities. Without God, none of this would be possible and it’s nice knowing that we have the chance to wake up every morning and get better. Hopefully this time we can move on to the Elite Eight, it’s only been done once at North Adams.”

Peebles finished their season at 11-13 with a nice tourney run to the district finals. The Indians were led on Saturday by a pair of players in double figures, senior Hayden Browning with 14 and sophomore Grady Knechtly with 10. In his final game as an Indian, senior Carson Reed scored 9. With the loss, the Tribe says farewell to seniors Browning, Reed, Garrett Shiveley and Kash Hayslip.

“The Convo is a different environment and North Adams has been here before and I think that’s a benefit,” said Coach Arey in his postgame radio interview. “Hopefully we will learn from this one and get back here next year.”

“We feel really good about the kids we have coming back, though it hurts to lose good seniors and in our case, four great kids, leaders and role models.”

The Devils now move to the division VI regional semifinals on Wednesday, March 5 at Ohio Dominican University where they will battle the Monroe Central Seminoles with a trip to the Elite Eight on the line. The Seminoles are 22-3 on the season and have won 12 of their last 13, including a 54-33 win over Berlin Hiland in the district finals. Wednesday’s Sweet 16 tip off is set for 5:30 p.m.

“We’ve never been to Ohio Dominican before but we will get a game plan together and be ready to go out and compete,” said Coach McCormick. “We want to play our game no matter who we play.”

Peebles

7 13 10 15 —45

North Adams

17 21 14 13— 65

Peebles (45): Shiveley 1 1-2 4, Sims 0 0-2 0, Knechtly 5 0-0 10, Reed 3 3-3 9, Johnson 1 0-0 2, Browning 4 4-4 14, McClary 2 0-0 5, Hayslip 0 1-2 1, Team 16 9-13 45.

N. Adams (65): rothwell 2 0-0 4, Young 3 0-0 7, Rogers 5 0-0 13, Osborne 4 0-0 11, Schweickart 11 5-8 28, Davis 1 0-2 2, Team 26 5-10 65.

Three-Point Goals:

Peebles (4) – Shiveley 1, Browning 2, McClary 1

N. Adams (8) – Young 1, Rogers 3, Osborne 3, Schweickart 1