Dominic Francis started the Raiders’ offense with a bang…this dunk off a turnover during Russia’s 20-14 first quarter run. (Press Pros Feature Photos by Sonny Fulks)
The Division VII champion Russia Raiders finished an unbeaten season, earned the program’s 1,000th victory and, in the words of Cornerstone Christian coach Babe Kwasniak, “are everything that’s right about this game.”
Dayton, OH – Spencer Cordonnier doesn’t remember the vanquished opponent, only that it might have been game 16 or 17, when he allowed himself to believe.
Believe what his players, 11 of them seniors, believed before the season. That his Russia basketball team could win every game and the school’s first state boys basketball championship.
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“I was like, we’re pretty good,” he said. “You’re going to have to be pretty good offensively to beat us, and then there’s no guarantees. Because we’re pretty good offensively.”
Veteran columnist Jeff Gilbert writes Ohio State basketball and OHSAA sports for Press Pros Magazine.com.
On Saturday at UD Arena, the Raiders were better than good on offense and defense. They were themselves. They were the same buzzsaw to Willoughby Cornerstone Christian that they were to the first 28 teams on their schedule.
“They were just phenomenal,” Cornerstone coach Babe Kwasniak said.
Many superlatives could describe the Raiders’ 29-0 season, the 1,000th victory in program history and, most fitting of all, the elite way they played in the Division VII state final to defeat Cornerstone 74-57.
The final moments were a long time coming for the Raiders. They had earned the right more than most for Cordonnier to pull his starters one at a time for a bear hug as they came to the bench. To hear their names called and receive their gold medals. To hoist the championship trophy high and hear the roars of everyone from Russia. To cut down a net.
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Those moments belonged to this team, but the players and coaches want it known that those moments are shared with teammates who came before them. The ones who graduated after enduring Division IV state semifinal losses the past two seasons to super team Richmond Heights.
Vince Borchers bowls through Cornerstone’s Quinn Kwasniak to score in the first half of Saturday’s 74-57 Division VII title win.
Cordonnier couldn’t begin to name all the players the past two seasons who helped lay the foundation for Saturday’s crowning achievement. But the next time he sees them, which might have been Friday night, he will have a hug for them, too.
“Not everybody gets this opportunity, and it’s not fair to those other guys that this collection of guys all came into school together,” Cordonnier said. “But there’s going to be one gigantic party in Russia tonight. And every darn one of them kids and them people are going to feel like they’re a state champ as well.”
During Russia’s remarkable run, the closest margin of victory was 11 points. Cornerstone was the first team to score 50 points against them. But the journey wasn’t as easy as all the numbers suggest.
Basketball season is a grind, especially when the expectations to finish 29-0 reverberates across the state. After the state semifinal win over Arlington last Friday in Bowling Green, Braylon Cordonnier said he was ready for the season to be over. But that didn’t slow him down in the title game. He scored a team-high 22 points, made 3 of 5 3-pointers and had four assists. He is ready to move on to baseball season and play his favorite sport, but he will miss the brotherhood of the basketball team.
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“We’ve been together for the last 10, 11 years,” he said. “The last two years we’ve been playing with some upperclassmen, but to come back in senior year and play with all these guys again and to get it done with them just feels good. It’s over now, so we can move on.”
At that moment teammate Benjamin York spoke up: “He was crying at the end of the game by the way, just so you know.”
Cornerstone coach Babe Kwasniak was highly complimentary of Russia’s title win…but had this moment of angst over a missed call in the third quarter.
No one among the 6,466 fans in the arena was more impressed with the Raiders than Kwasniak. And he’s been around. He won Division III state titles at Cleveland Villa Angela-St. Joseph in 2013, 2015 and 2017 and was runner-up in the two in-between years. He watched his dad Tedd Kwasniak win back-to-back state titles at the same school in 1994 and 1995.
“They just love to compete, and they love each other, and man, were they good … they were so good,” Kwasniak said. “I’m just so happy for those guys because that’s a win for Ohio basketball. Those guys are everything that’s right about this game.”
Despite the final 17-point margin, Cornerstone was not an easy out for the Raiders. Scorer extraordinaire Quinn “Turtle” Kwasniak had to be controlled before the Raiders could build an insurmountable lead.
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The Raiders knew he would be a challenge. He recently surpassed Jon Diebler, formerly of Upper Sandusky High and Ohio State, as the leading scorer in Ohio history. He finished with over 3,300 points plus the state record for 3-pointers with 572.
Against Russia, Kwasniak scored 38 points on 13 of 23 shooting, including 6 of 11 from three-point range. But that’s not the half of it. Among his 15 points in the second quarter, he made two threes from the OHSAA logo on the left side of the floor. Those are the kind of shots most humans usually only see from Stephen Curry. Then he made one almost as long from the right sideline while falling out of bounds.
Cornerstone’s Quinn Kwasniak fires over Dominic Francis from the midcourt OHSAA logo. He finished with 38 points on 13 of 23 shooting.
Kwasniak’s accuracy gave him 23 points in the half. And it rallied Cornerstone from a nine-point deficit to trail only 38-34 at halftime.
“That kid is something,” Spencer Cordonnier said. “We told these guys all week long, ‘I don’t know that you guys understand – this kid doesn’t know a bad shot.’ And he got on a roll in the second quarter, and I was like, ‘Whoa, how in the world are we going to adjust and try to slow him down?’”
But the Raiders had halftime to figure it out. Kwasniak is 6-foot-4, so 6-foot-5 Benjamin York drew the second-half assignment. His height and long arms made a difference. Kwasniak took only three shots in the third quarter and made two 3-pointers. That helped the Raiders open a 54-42 lead heading into the fourth.
Kwasniak scored nine points in the fourth, but the Raiders’ relentless play on both ends wore out the Patriots as their lead grew as it always does in the second half.
“Spencer yelled at me a couple times to just chase after him,” said York, who credited his teammates with good communication and jumping out to stop Kwasniak on ball screens. “I was like, I’m trying, but you can only go for so long. I think the one possession we played 40 straight seconds and I switched off. I think Braylon took him for a little bit, so it’s tiring, but we got it done.”
Dominic Francis stuffs the shot attempt of Cornerstone’s Darrien Davis in the second half of Saturday’s Div. VI title game at UD Arena.
York guarding Kwasniak wasn’t the only adjustment. The players had a second idea that they had seen work a few times in the first half. And that was fine with Cordonnier. He admitted the second quarter felt like a blur. And he has said many times this season that sometimes the coaches just listen to the players because of their experience. The players told him they needed to run at Kwasniak when he had the ball.
“Many times before we’ve trusted these guys, and that’s what we did,” Cordonnier said. “We just kept somebody up and ran at him.”
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Babe Kwasniak said he heard Russia would try to guard his son straight up, which they did in the first half. But he knew the double teams would come because they always do when opponents realize one defender isn’t enough.
“Nobody in the history of Ohio high school basketball, including LeBron Raymone James, has ever been guarded like Quinn “Turtle” Kwasniak,” Babe Kwasniak said. “This is who he is. This is what he’s done.”
Russia, nor anyone else, has a 37-points-a-game scorer like Kwasniak. But they have multiple players who can score and have big games. In the title game it was Cordonnier’s 22, Dominic Francis’ 21 and Vince Borchers’ 14 that led the Raiders.
That kind of production is expected from Cordonnier and Borchers. They were named the Division VII co-players of the year in the Southwest District, and they played starting roles last year.
Francis, however, played behind his cousin Felix Francis last year. But Spencer Cordonnier knew he could get a lot of production from Dominic this season. He told him to rebound – he had eight in the title game – and he told him to leave his man and block shots, and he blocked four Cornerstone shots.
“He took everything that we threw at him, and the first couple weeks of the season were pretty trying,” Cordonnier said. “We tried to push him and then backed off a little bit and then push him some more. He responded each and every time.”
Cornerstone coach Babe Kwasniak hugs his son Quinn for his effort…38 points, 13 of 23 shooting, 6 of 11 from three-point range.
Cornerstone had no one who could match up defensively with Francis on the low block. He made strong scoring moves, had a couple dunks and gave the Raiders a state-final performance his coach believed in November that he could coax out of his center.
“It was hard a lot of days, but we got the job done at the end, so I got to be grateful,” Francis said. “All the coaches helped me, all my teammates, my friends.”
Russia’s combination of size, strength and just enough speed led to a lot of their success. On defense, as Spencer Cordonnier often said, his team played connected and embraced wanting to guard long before they got to high school. They won 19 games this season by more than 21 points.
Babe Kwasniak, who has seen just about all there is to see in high school basketball, appreciated what he saw in the Raiders’ entire portfolio even if it meant he had to lose.
“The two things that lead to winning the most, in my opinion, are toughness and intelligence,” he said. “And they’re bigger, stronger, faster, smarter, better coaching. And we got a guy with a bad haircut that made a couple shots, and that’s all we had going for us.”
Russia’s Spencer Cordonnier greets his son Braylon as a state champion, leaving the floor for the last time as a Russia Raider.
Russia’s state championship marked the end of the 100th season of the Shelby County Athletic League. Spencer Cordonnier was asked if his team is the greatest team in league history.
He paused long enough for assistant coach Brad Francis to speak up from the back of the room.
“Yes … yes … yes,” Francis said.
“Coach Francis won’t allow me to say anything other than yes,” Cordonnier said. “These guys probably believe that they are. We can believe that, and then we’ll just allow everybody else to debate it.”
Babe Kwasniak has probably never been to Shelby County other than possibly passing through on I-75. But he shared another strong opinion about how good the 2025 Russia Raiders were before he gave up the mic.
“They’re the best team we’ve played all year,” he stated. “And we played Richmond Heights. You play like that, and you can play with anybody.”
And this season, nobody, for four quarters, could play with the Russia Raiders.
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