Clay contending, but still can’t get over the hump

By: 
J. Patrick Eaken

Clay boys basketball coach David Rodriguez believed this could be the year that his Eagles were going to compete with the best in the Three Rivers Athletic Conference.

The Eagles are competing, only they are not winning. Last year, Clay went 4-18 but lost by an average of seven points per game. This year, it is déjà vu.

Most of his senior players have been playing on the varsity together for three years, and as a group they have been playing with each other since grade school. But, as seniors, they still cannot quite get over the hump.

Clay opened the season with a 51-48 overtime win over a good Perrysburg team and then lost to once state ranked Sylvania Northview (9-2), 70-57. Then, the Lucas County Health Department shut down Clay’s season for six weeks — and this was supposed to be the year Clay was in the mix for a TRAC title.

Now that the season has picked up again, Clay is 2-7 overall and 0-3 in the TRAC, but they are still losing by the slightest of margins. At Rossford’s Martin Luther King Showcase, Clay and unbeaten Southview (9-0) battled neck and neck through three quarters until the Cougars opened a fourth quarter lead on three-point shots, winning 54-44. Meanwhile, most of Clay’s shots from beyond the arc were hitting nothing but iron.

“Rossford is a beautiful gym, but we’ve been there a couple times and we’ve struggled to shoot there. I don’t know what it is,” Rodriguez said. “And we missed the front end of free throws. We had the lead, and then turned around and missed free throws, and then turn around and hit a three to go up one. So, it is just possessions. Like the Northview game, we had them down 10, and it is just you have to learn how to finish. We know how to lose.”

Rodriguez still believes it is a matter of time before his players get on the right end of the scoreboard against quality teams.

“Yeah, 100 percent. There is not one team in the TRAC that is that team like Lima (Senior) was last year. I think every team can beat each other. We all know each other, so there really is not anything that you are going to be really hiding, but it is not like years in the past, where you would be like, ‘Man, Central (Catholic) is this good, or Whitmer is this good, or Findlay is this good, it is anybody on any given night.’ 

“Lima is still going to be Lima at the end of the day, regardless of whether (coach) Quincey’s (Simpson) team is down or something else, that (up tempo) style is going to be something else to deal with.”

The reason Rodriguez remains hopeful is the commitment by his players.

“I love this team — this is my fourth year, and these are my incoming class. I love everything about them. I love the grit and how they play together. We just have to figure out a way to get that third scorer going, which is (senior) Keeghan Calkins usually. He is our third guy that we feature and he’s on a little bit of a shooting slump, and as soon as we figure that out, it’s a little fundamental here, slowing down a little bit, picking a better time to shoot. I think then the pieces will fit nice together,” Rodriguez said.

“We just have to find a way to put the ball in the hole. We play good defense — that is something we’ve always done. We are well prepared, we know what we are doing, and sometimes when it’s difficult to get the ball in the hole, it’s demoralizing. Like I tell the kids — that was our problem last year,” Rodriguez continued.

“We were in every game last year — St. John’s, St. Francis, everybody. We always talk about it too, when we go through our shooting drills and all of this stuff, we always have a lull in the third quarter. It used to be our best quarter, but against Northview it was our worst quarter — we shot 19 percent and that was the ballgame, and that is a darn good team that is on top of the NLL (Northern Lakes League).”

 

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