OHSAA district loss does not diminish progress of hard-working Minerva boys basketball team
UHRICHSVILLE — It didn't work out for Minerva. Actually, it did.
On Wednesday night in the Claymont gym, a tremendous player accustomed to winning in front of a big community following had his latest "night." Six-foot-1 Maysville senior Alex Bobb scored 22 points in 74-64 Division II boys basketball district semifinal win over the Lions.
No. 1 seed Maysville won its 16th straight en route to a Division II boys basketball district championship game Saturday against No. 2 seed Indian Valley.
Bobb is the No. 1 recruiting target of nearby Muskingum and had other sets of college eyes on him Wednesday night. He opened the season with eight 3-pointers against Zanesville-area rival Rosecrans and has been the star of every opponent's scouting report.
Against Minerva, Maysville's all-time scoring leader stayed poised against hounding man-to-man defense.
"If I get by the guy guarding me," he said, "we're playing five on four, every time. I find my guys, and I know they're going to knock it down."
The Lions competed, often seeming the equal of the state power. A nightmare mix of long rebounds, bobbles, missed layups, rim-outs, long rebounds and unlucky bounces left them trailing 38-29 at halftime and 56-48 after three quarters.
Maysville, a 24-2 team last year, is 21-3 this year.
Minerva, out with a 14-10 record, had all kinds of fun.
The Lions' season began long before it began.
Rich Hart was in Cincinnati having some laughs with old college friends. He had retired once after a long run as Minerva's head coach. He un-retired, coached eight years at Salem, and retired again.
"Retire" maybe isn't the right word. At 63, Hart still plays basketball and baseball. He stuck around coaching as a Minerva varsity assistant, until ...
"It was a Thursday at the end of May," Hart recalls. "We were at a Reds-Yankees game.
"My phone started going off the hook. It was school board members and some coaches who had coached with me.
"I thought, that's kind of odd."
Minerva head coach Shawn Green had just resigned. Key people wanted Hart to unretire again.
Hart knew how he wanted to coach but didn't know how a new wave of youngsters would take to someone his age.
It took time, but they took.
"We were up and down during the season," Hart said. "We had 10 days before our first tournament game and really got after it. They worked really hard, and it paid dividends.
"It's been refreshing to watch them grow up in front of you."
The Lions beat Beaver 80-59 and Carrollton 64-43 to set up the district semifinal against Maysville.
"It's our first winning season in six years," Hart said. "It's our first trip to districts since 2009."
Hart's Minerva teams went 184-118 in a head coaching run spanning 1992-2006. He got a big kick out of this year's team, and so did the community, which turned out in force Wednesday.
Hart thinks 6-5 senior guard Garrett Gonzalez could thrive as an NCAA Division II player — the scouts there for Bobb also took notes on Gonzalez, who topped 30 points in both sectional games. He scored 19 against Maysville.
"He was banged up early and couldn't practice," Hart said. "At the midpoint he's turned it up a notch, then he turned it up another notch. He can do it all."
"I don't think I could ask for any more from my senior season," Gonzalez said. "I love all my teammates to death."
The only other senior in the rotation was Miles Miller, who was a 5-foot-8 freshman before taking two years off.
"He came back and he had grown to 6-4," Hart said. "He's worked his tail off."
Jayden Yerger, a 5-10 junior, emerged as an all-around player who guarded most opponents' best scorers — he followed Bobb everywhere Tuesday night when the Lions weren't in a 1-3-1 zone. He scored 16 points.
Sophomore point guard Rowan Hoffee started as a freshman and averaged 13.5 points this year as a sophomore. He scored 17 points Wednesday. His 3-pointer pulled Minerva to within 29-27 late in the first half before Maysville surged to a 38-29 lead at the break.
"The Hoffee kid is going to be really good," said Maysville head coach Dave Brown.
Two other sophomores, 6-1 Owen Shick and 6-3 Braydon Wood, started all season.
Hart sounded ready for another year in the sun.
"There's days when I think this is a young man's job," he said. "There's days when I can't wait to get there. Most days I can't wait to get there."
Brown, the Maysville coach, said his Panthers were "lucky to get out with a victory."
"Coach Hart is a legend," Brown said. "His guys played their butts off. They were a really good opponent."
This article originally appeared on The Repository: Maysville boys basketball beats Minerva in OHSAA district semifinal
