Jake Lowman was getting it on all sides, both from the Bradley student section and from defenders like Garrett Sever on the court but he still made a major contribution to the Pacers win over Bradley. (Press Pros Feature Photos by Brian Bayless)
It will be an all-Delaware County Division I regional championship Saturday at Ohio Dominican as fourth-ranked Olentangy Orange and sixth-ranked Delaware lived up to their district seeds with dominant semifinal victories.
Columbus, OH – Hilliard Bradley’s student section heckled burly Delaware Hayes point guard Jake Lowman relentlessly all night during a Division I regional semifinal boys basketball game Wednesday. The 6-foot-4, 225-pounder was offered up everything from cheeseburgers to cupcakes.
It turns out Lowman did his feasting on the Jaguars.
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The Pacers’ supposed third wheel behind Ohio University-bound 6-4 guard Jesse Burris and 6-7 junior forward Landon Vanderwarker, Lowman came up big with a team-high 17 points and also handed out three assists as Delaware trounced Bradley 56-40 before a sellout crowd at Ohio Dominican.
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Lowman, also the program’s record-setting quarterback, scored 18 points in a district championship rout of Walnut Ridge.
“I think we’ve coined a new nickname for him: Playoff Jake,” Burris quipped.
Lowman hit three three-point shots and scored 11 points as Delaware jumped out to a six-point halftime lead it never relinquished.
Delaware Hayes’ Jeremiah Russell mixes it up with Bradley’s Jeb Bischoff.
“Those rims are nice here,” joked Lowman. “I’m a secret weapon basically. All the pressure is on Jesse and Landon and it actually kind of helps me do my thing.”
Pacers coach Adam Vincenzo said Lowman’s leadership has been a boon on a team with just three seniors.
“When he’s making plays and knocking down shots like that, it really opens things up for Jesse and Landon,” he said. “He’s got a lot of versatility and that impacts us in so many ways.”
Burris added 15 points and nine rebounds and Carter Piatt-Brown 11 points for the sixth-ranked Pacers (26-1), who will face fourth-ranked Olentangy Orange (26-1) in an all-Delaware County regional championship game at 7 p.m. Friday at ODU.
This has been an incredible ride for a community thirsting for a champion. Never in the history of Delaware basketball has a team advanced this far. The original high school, known as Willis, was erected in 1883. Hayes opened in 1963. The only other district championship came in 1986 and that team lost its regional semifinal to Lancaster 62-53.
Midway through the third quarter, Hayes pushed its lead to 12 and was only mildly challenged the rest of the way.
“Bradley is so disciplined defensively so we were trying to space them out for driving lanes,” Vincenzo said. “We knew we weren’t going to score 90 again (like the district final) but we preach being fearless. We tell them to just make plays. And defensively we were locked in.”
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Burris, who now has scored a program record 1,603 points, said the Pacers were focused on exploiting their height advantage. Delaware outrebounded Bradley 35-20.
“They came out with a short guy on me and I’m thinking they’re trying to zone us and make us shoot threes,” he said. “We can shoot threes, but we made some adjustments to get more space.”
It didn’t end the way Cade Norris and his Jaguars wanted it to, but Norris, an Illinois State signee, leaves behind a stellar high school career for his hometown.
Illinois State signee Cade Norris scored 22 points and grabbed 10 rebounds to pace Bradley (21-6). At times, he was a one-man wrecking ball muscling his way into the paint. He capped a brilliant career with a program record 1,619 points.
“Their physicality and our inability to match that was the difference tonight,” Jaguars coach Brett Norris said. “Guys who typically win five feet in front of the rim typically win games and they dominated in that area. I felt like every ball in the air, Vanderwarker challenged. Honestly, it was hard to feel comfortable tonight and that’s the first time all year that I’ve been able to say that.”
Olentangy Orange 50, Newark 42
A game that featured seven lead changes and eight times turned on a dime.
Trailing 33-31, Orange cranked up its defense and went on a 14-0 run to bury shell-shocked Newark, which went some 11 minutes, 34 seconds without a field goal.
“Really? That’s beautiful,” said Pioneers coach Anthony Calo. “Our defense was pretty good all game, but I think collectively I think we eventually wore them down. We were trying to deny a couple guys, collapsing on other guys.”
Sophomore Levi Davis played a key role in the surge, turning a steal into a dunk, hitting a nice driving basket and assisting Keegan Knupp on a turn-around basket in the lane.
Levi Davis defends against the shot of Newark’s Braylon Morris
“We practice hard on defense,” he said. “We had a lot of talks during timeouts about how we were going to have to turn things around with our defense … about how one play could shift the momentum. I think we were just communicating well on defense. We were all in synch during that run.”
Knupp had 14 points while Davis and Devin Brown added 12 each for Orange, which returned to the regional final for the second straight March. The Pioneers were ousted by Pickerington Central a year ago.
After getting the big lead, Orange spent much of the fourth quarter holding the ball – a ploy it also used successfully in a district final rout of Reynoldsburg.
Orange also held Newark standout Steele Meister, a first-team all-district choice and Findlay signee, scoreless in the final three quarters and just five on the night of 2 of 9 field goal shooting, He did snag 13 rebounds.
“Wow, that’s awesome, too,” Calo said. “We wanted to have Devin guard him a lot and there were personnel things about Steele that we really had to execute.”
The Pioneers had to change gears after Newark took them out of flow. Orange typically thrives on spreading the floor, driving and dishing to the corners for threes.
“We talked about attacking and getting to the rim more,” Davis said. “Usually, we have not had problems getting our three-point guys open. Sometimes, you’ve just to find a way to win and tonight it was to attack the rim and set the tone on the defensive end.”
Calo said Orange was forced to take advantage of more one-on-one situations, especially with the 6-foot-5 Brown, who is a handful to guard for any team. The first-team all-district choice grabbed 14 rebounds as well.
“(Coach Jeff Quackenbush) tries to throw you out of rhythm and he succeeded at that for a long time,” he said. “We knew we would see a lot of different stuff. I just told the guys to go aggressive downhill and go to the rim crazy hard.”
Keegan Knupp and the Orange defense repeatedly denied Steele Meister during a Regional Semi-Final win at Ohio Dominican.
Quackenbush, whose team has won a record 28 district championships, said his team simply was overmatched athletically during its cold spell.
“At times during the season, we struggled to score,” he said. “We’re not much of a jump shooting team, and a few times when we got to the rim, we got our shots blocked. We got behind two possessions, now we’re chasing them around and they’ve got awfully good ball-handlers. They just have so many skilled kids who can get to the rim.”
Braylon Morris scored a game-high 21 points for Newark (22-5), which also was eliminated in the regional semi by Orange a year ago.
Neither team had led by more than four points before the fourth quarter surge.
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