Jonathan Powell scored a game-high 21 points, Ethan Greenberg added 17 and the Elks hit 10 of 17 from the floor and 9 of 11 at the free throw line in the second half to register a 60-35 Division I regional semifinal victory over the Hamilton Big Blue on Wednesday night at Xavier University’s Cintas Center.
“We shot it well, and I always say you shoot it well for a reason,” Cupps said. “Our guys work at it, first of all. But then if you take good shots and you work at it, you have a good chance to shoot it well. So the credit is really to our guys. In the second half, I don’t think we settled. First half, we settled for some 3s that weren’t good shots.”
Centerville (18-8) plays top-ranked Moeller (26-1) in the regional finals at noon Saturday at Xavier. Moeller knocked off Elder 39-35 on Wednesday.
“We knew what we had to do to work on the right stuff in practice to prepare us for the game,” Powell said. “We knew they had a little Cinderella story going.”
Marlon Reed scored a team-high 13 points and Andrea Holden had 12 points and 12 rebounds for Hamilton (16-10) which secured the program’s highest win total since going 18-7 in 2019-2020.
“I think we achieved a lot,” Hamilton coach Kevin Higgins said. “Obviously, it was a great experience. I wish we would have played a little better in the second half, but they have a lot to do with it. There’s a reason why people think that they have a chance to win state. They showed that in the second half.”
Centerville closed the series gap to 3-2 against Hamilton. The two programs hadn’t played since the 1999-2000 season when the Big Blue won 41-38 in the tournament.
The Elks went on a 12-2 run that spanned into the second quarter, giving them a 25-14 lead. The Big Blue closed the first half out on a 9-2 spurt capped by a Reed 3-pointer just before the buzzer sounded to pull it to within 27-23.
Centerville held Hamilton to just 12 points and was able to get its offense clicking on all cylinders in the second half
“We strung some stops together, and that helps. You get kind of in a rhythm offensively,” Cupps said. “I thought (Powell) did a good job of picking great shots. We got the ball in the lane. In the first half, we were getting it there and making kind of bad decisions with it, or we were settling for 3s without attacking the rim. I thought in the second half we did a much better job of that. Once we made a couple jumpers, then we had them spread out a little bit and could attack a little bit more off the dribble.”
Cupps said his Elks weren’t defensively labeled as being hard-nosed throughout the season. But that’s changed during their tournament run.
“That’s a little unusual. That’s kind of how we are,” Cupps said. “This group is now starting to get it.”
Jamar Montgomery’s defensive awareness caused fits for the Big Blue, and once he got into foul trouble late, Cohen Ellis stepped in to pick things up.
“They’re hard to guard with all of their actions and the quickness that they have,” Cupps said of Hamilton. “We went a little bit of zone, which I thought was good to mix in. Our guys have done a really good job of playing it. We hadn’t played 20 possessions of that throughout the season. But we’ve worked on it all year. Now, it’s times like this it comes in handy.”
Centerville, which played in its sixth-straight regional semifinal game, went on a 19-3 run in the second half to put things away.
“In the second half, our defense was already sharp,” Powell said. “Our defense led to offense. The consistent thing is just doing it over and over and over again — pound them, pound them and pound them.”
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