All season long Pleasant Ridge has wanted to impose its running rams style.
On Friday, the team was able to do just that.
“We had a real nice boost there and it’s been awhile since we had one of those,” PR coach Sean Murphy said. “ At Christmas we hit a wall, but now it seems like they are starting to come out of it.”
Thanks to a 15-4 run to close out the third quarter, Ridge sailed to a 66-54 while hosting rival Immaculata.
“I just think we didn’t trust each other as a team and tried to do too many one-on-one stuff,” Imac coach Mike Connelly said. “They did a good job of getting their fast break going and got a lot of easy points that we didn’t get.”
Pleasant Ridge grabbed the game’s early advantage with an 11-6 surge, but the Raiders rallied. A 3-pointer from Sean Murray at 2:30 gave Imac its first lead, and then he hit another right at the quarter’s end for an 18-15 Raiders lead. Murray finished the contest with 7 made 3-pointers.
“Sean was a bright spot,” Connelly said. “We should’ve gone more to him in the second half, because he was keeping us in the ball game. Sean was the only one hitting.”
The second period saw the game turn into a give-and-take battle when each squad traded buckets. At the four minute mark, the game was tied at 21 and then at 1:30 it was knotted at 28. The Rams did finish strong however to hold a 32-28 edge at half.
It was the third quarter that decided the game. After sharing a few baskets, Ridge went on a 15-4 spree that saw Imac go scoreless for nearly five minutes. Ram guard Cory Theis buried a 3-pointer with 40 seconds remaining and PR boasted a 50-36 advantage going into the fourth.
The final period didn’t change much. Immaculata never could get closer than nine points, which came at 2:01, but that was quickly thwarted. In the final two minutes, PR made nearly all its free throws to ice the victory.
“My seniors were huge,” Murphy said. “Caleb Morandy for his defense. Brandon Heim controlling the game. Tyler Self, Connor Culbertson and Cody Heim were absolutely huge controlling the inside. Brandon ran the show and Dalton finished the game. Cody Theis also won royalty so I told them I’m taking them out for ice cream.”
Warden led the Rams in scoring with 21 points, followed by Connor Culbertson and Brandon Heim each adding 12. Cody Heim put up 15, Cody Theis two and Tyler Self four points.
Immaculata’s leading scorer was Sean Murray with 26 points. Next was Adam Sewell with 11, Josh Boeppler with six and Connor Schmidling with four. Corey Leintz had four points as well and Dan Boisson collected three.
“It’s a rivalry game,” Murphy said. “We got back to that running rams kind of style but we did it under control and that was really important.”
