'Still dancing': GlenOak boys basketball knocks off Louisville in OHSAA district final

ALLIANCE — With a district championship medal around his neck, the celebration played out all around Ja'Corey Lipkins. But the GlenOak High School senior's facial expression did not suggest the good times were rolling.

Why so serious?

"We're still dancing," Lipkins said. "The job is not finished."

The Golden Eagles still are on the dance floor because they survived four quarters of a big-boy basketball mosh pit at Alliance's Harry Fails Gymnasium on Saturday.

GlenOak held off Louisville 61-58 in front of any overflow crowd to win the Division I, Northeast 2 district championship — the Golden Eagles' first district title in 13 years.

In an ultra physical and ultra tight contest, Lipkins scored a game-high 20 points as No. 9 seed GlenOak (20-6) knocked off the fourth-seeded Leopards (23-3) to advance to Tuesday's 7 p.m. regional semifinal against Brunswick at Kent State.

"Trust," Lipkins said, explaining how the Golden Eagles got it done. "I trusted my teammates and my teammates trusted me. We have a brotherhood going on here. We challenge each other every day in practice, and when we come out here we all go hard."

Thirty-six years ago, Tom Siegfried was playing point guard for Rick Hairston's eighth-grade team at Alliance's old Stanton Junior High. Saturday, they were exchanging not-so-pleasantries at center court after one of Hairston's GlenOak players pushed one of Siegfried's Louisville players in the postgame handshake line.

Cooler heads prevailed, but it was that kind of afternoon, with emotions running high and connections running deep in an absolutely electric atmosphere. Siegfried actually has coached GlenOak's Reese Zerger and Bryce Broom on the same AAU team with his son, Louisville point guard Beau Siegfried, and Leopard teammates Brayden Gross and Ashton Marshall.

Broom did not play for the second straight game because of mononucleosis but was able to attend Saturday and take part in the postgame celebration.

"I feel bad for Bryce and I know how much work he's put into it," Tom Siegfried said. "You want to see everybody have an opportunity to experience this atmosphere. So I'm really happy for Rick and I'm really happy for Reese and Bryce. It's a great experience to cut the nets down."

Zerger, a junior big man, scored 14 points despite sitting much of the first half with foul trouble. Senior Jaylen McElroy filled in for Broom at point guard just like he did in the district semifinal against Canton McKinley and again made a huge impact.

The 6-foot-2 senior totaled 16 points, four rebounds, four steals and three assists while having to chase Beau Siegfried around the court most of the afternoon.

"You have to have some kids with no conscious," Hairston said. "You'll see Jaylen McElroy wow the crowd for seven minutes, and then he'll throw the ball away four straight times. But, he'll keep playing, and that's the beauty of him and the rest of those kids in our locker room. They'll screw up, and then they'll keep on playing."

As a perfect example, GlenOak clung to a 55-53 lead in the fourth quarter when Marshall swiped a pass and started a Louisville break the other way. But there was McElroy to steal the ball back and score in transition to put GlenOak up four points with 1:41 left.

"We're used to it," McElroy said of that type of sequence. "My team needs me and I've got to be that guy that tries to pick us back up. As long as we're in this tournament, I'm going to be with them every step of the way."

The game started fast with the two teams trading buckets. Louisville led 22-19 entering the second quarter, and from there the game started to shift into a lower gear.

A gear where you better be comfortable playing through contact.

Neither team led by more than six the entire game. Lipkins buried a long 3-pointer to give him 14 first-half points and cut GlenOak's deficit to 32-31 at the break.

"It's a district final and it felt like a one-possession game the whole time," Tom Siegfried said.

The Leopards flipped a three-point deficit into a two-point lead in the final seconds of the third quarter when Tate Aljancic buried a 3-pointer and Hayden Nigro, after a Lipkins turnover, scored on a driving bucket at the buzzer.

Louisville had grabbed momentum as its crowd roared.

GlenOak cooly grabbed it right back to start the fourth, with Lipkins driving for a bucket and then hitting Zerger with a no-look feed for a layup.

"In the third quarter, I kind of gave it up," said Lipkins, who had missed a breakaway dunk that would have put GlenOak up eight midway through the third. "I was playing lazy. I knew the fourth quarter was my time to bring the win home. I was going to do everything in my power to lead my team to the win."

The Golden Eagles led 47-45 and, despite the ups and downs that played out over the next seven minutes, they never trailed again.

Louisville had one last chance when, trailing by three points, it got the offensive rebound off a missed free throw with 8.7 seconds left. But the Leopards committed their ninth and final turnover of the second half to basically seal the game.

"I think the game obviously was officiated to let them play, and with that we really didn't get to the line until the second half. That was one of the things that hurt us in the first half," Tom Siegfried said. "But overall it's a credit to GlenOak to maintain that lead. I thought at the end of the third quarter that the momentum kind of turned to us a little bit."

The 6-6 Gross returned from an ankle injury that caused him to miss Louisville's district semifinal against Medina and was strong with 18 points, four rebounds and three assists Saturday. Beau Siegfried scored 10 points while Nigro, Louisville's only senior, totaled 17 points and four rebounds.

Nigro finishes his career with a school-record 1,434 career points, which rank 14th in Stark County history.

Louisville, which tied a program single-season record with 23 wins, established itself as the area's best team early on this season. But it falls short of a coveted Division I district championship two years after winning a Division II district title and advancing to a regional final.

"I would equate a D1 district final very similar to a D2 regional final," Tom Siegfried said. "It feels the same. Of course, we want to go on, but you kind of run into these kind of teams a little earlier in D1.

"I'm just proud of where we put ourselves on the map, not just in the county but in the state of Ohio, with the respect we've gained this year. The expecations now are there for future teams."

Hairston earns his fourth district title with a third different team after winning district championships at Timken in 2008 and 2013 and at McKinley in 2016.

The 62-year-old coach, moments after doing the "Stanky Legg" much to his team's delight, got doused with water in a celebratory locker room.

He couldn't be mad, not after the Golden Eagles' gutsy performance against the powerful Leopards.

"You know, they hit us a few times, and it didn't seem like it fazed us much," Hairston said. "They got that lead to four or five a couple of times, and we'd come right back down and get a bucket. There is a lot of fight in our kids, and I think they're learning if they play the right way they can win against anyone."

Reach Josh at josh.weir@cantonrep.com 

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More Stark County basketball: Jackson girls and boys, Louisville and GlenOak boys live score updates from Saturday's tournament games

This article originally appeared on The Repository: Ja'Corey Lipkins leads GlenOak boys basketball to OHSAA district title