Boys basketball: Centerville holds off Elder to reach regional final

CINCINNATI — Centerville survived its first true tournament test — barely.

The Elks watched a 14-point halftime lead dwindle to three twice in the final two minutes before surviving for a 54-47 win over Elder in a Division I boys’ basketball regional semifinal on Wednesday at Xavier University’s Cintas Center.

“We were playing not to lose instead of playing to win,” Centerville senior guard Gabe Cupps said.

“We lost our aggressiveness in the second half,” Centerville coach Brook Cupps said.

The 6-foot-2 Gabe Cupps scored a game-high 21 points to lead Centerville, the Greater Western Ohio Conference champion, into Saturday’s region final rematch against Fairfield. The 23-4 Indians came from behind in the fourth quarter get past Greater Miami Conferencerival Princeton, 51-45, in Wednesday’s second game. Fairfield will take an eight-game winning streak into Saturday’s game, which is scheduled to tip off at 5 p.m. The Elks did not play Fairfield, the GMC champion, during the regular season.

Senior Jonathan Powell scored 11 points, including Centerville’s last eight in the final 1:04, to help the 24-3 Elks extend their current winning streak to five games since a 69-61 loss to LaLumiere Prep of Indiana in the regular-season finale. Centerville has won 13 straight games against Ohio teams since a 63-59 loss to Akron St. Vincent-St. Mary’s on Jan. 13.

Saturday’s winner advances to a 5:15 state semifinal on March 18 at University of Dayton Arena. The state championship game is scheduled for March 19 at 8:30 p.m. at UD Arena.

Centerville, the 2020-2021 Division I state champion and this season’s Associated Press Division I statewide poll champion, is hoping to make its third trip in three seasons to the state tournament. The Elks beat Fairfield, 55-39, in last year’s regional finals on the way to the champioship game where they lost to Pickerington Central.

The win over Elder, this season’s Greater Catholic League South Division champion, was Centerville’s second in three seasons in a regional semifinal. The Elks beat the Panthers, 52-43, in a 2020-2021 region semifinal at Princeton.

Centerville won its first four tournament games by an average of 37.8 points and had scored at least 63 in each game, but three different Elks missed the front end of bonus free throw situations in the final 2:02 and unranked Elder scored 17 points in the fourth quarter to whittle down the lead and twice drew within one possession of tying the game.

Brook Cupps expected nothing less from the Joe Schoenfeld-coached Panthers.

“Joe is one of the coaches I have the most respect for,” the Centerville coach said. “His guys always compete and play hard. They did a good job of getting into the lane and getting to the free throw line in the second half.

“We lost our aggressiveness on defense in the second half, and that translated into not being aggressive on offense.”

The coach blamed that approach on creating a lack of focus that led to, among other issues, the missed free throws.

“It carries over,” he said.

“We relaxed,” said Gabe Cupps, who was averaging 15.2 points going into the game and scored 17 of his 21 before halftime. “I’m not one to force things. I try to let the game come to me. (Elder) did a lot better job taking me away in the second half.”

Powell, a 6-5 junior, scored on a layup off a perfectly executed sideline inbounds play for a 48-43 lead and added two free throws for a 50-43 lead with 29.4 seconds left. Elder again cut the lead to three with 5.8 seconds left. Powell sank two more free throws and scored on a dunk at the buzzer.

Surviving a close game might help Centerville down the tournament stretch.

“The benefit is we’re still playing,” Brook Cupps said. “We played some close games during the regular season. We know how to finish games. We have a practice (on Thursday), and we’ll point those things out.”

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