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A GREAT YEAR...is what the Miami East Vikings had as they narrowly missed out on a trip to Columbus.
By Bob Moore
The Miami East Vikings came up one play short against the Dayton Christian Warriors in the Division III Regional Final. The Vikings fell 49 – 48 in front of a packed house of 3500 fans at the Fred Raizk Arena, at Wilmington College. The Co-Champs of the CCC finished the season with a 23 – 2 record and a Regional Runner up Trophy.
“A lot of games turn out this way” noted Head Coach Allen Mack of the Vikings. “Four times we’ve played in the regional final and all of them were decided by four points or less. That’s typical.”
It may be a typical final score in a regional final game, but the game was as atypical as you can get when you consider how it ended. It definitely wasn’t the ending that anyone wearing Royal Blue wanted to see.
The Vikings started off the game tight offensively and the Warrior defense kept the Viking’s main gun, Dan Hickman, in check. The rest of the Vikings on the floor tried to fill in the gap with Hickman being covered and got some decent looks off the Warrior defense, but nothing would fall.
The Vikings were 1 for 6 in the first 4 minutes of the game and were behind 4 – 6 until Mack made his first set of substitutions and Viking sophomore Justin Hershberger rode in on this white horse. Hershberger busted his first two looks from beyond the arc and the Vikings were back to business as usual. The Viking’s D made the Warriors cough up the ball 5 times in the quarter and they held a 6 point lead until DC’s Aaron Deister hit a 3 to narrow the gap to 3, 14 – 11.
The first 6 minutes of the second quarter were looking golden for the Vikings as Hickman hit a nice jumper on the baseline that gave the Vikings a 6 point lead, 20-14 with 1:58 to go in the half. After Miami East turned the ball over for only the 4th time in the half, Dayton Christian hit a free throw with just over a minute remaining in the half that cut the lead to 5. Aaron Deister ended the half the same way as the first when he nailed a trey at the 46 second mark. East maintained a 2 point lead, 20 – 18 at the break.
The second half began with Dayton Christian utilizing their size advantage in the paint as 6’7” Ken Florkey scored their first 6 points for the Warriors and 6’5” Aaron Bryant completed an old fashioned 3 point play at the 4:37 mark that tied the game at 27.
Hickman started the half with a 3 pointer but that would end up his only made bucket of the third quarter. The rest of the team struggled and several shots just failed to fall or the Vikings didn’t finish strong enough in the paint to convert the bucket. The team shot 5-13 for the quarter and missed 3 free throws.
“We seem to play well in the first half and we lost that edge once again in the third quarter. It has been a problem for us throughout the year with exception of the North College Hill game” noted Mack and Vikings tendency for the 3 quarter blues.
Dayton Christian won the battle of the last 4 minutes of the 3rd quarter to take a 5 point lead going into the final stanza.
The Warriors built their lead to 6 at the 5:13 mark in the 4th quarter when Deister hit two free throws to put them up 37-43. The Vikings narrowed the gap to 3 with a lay up from Carey and Dunivan connecting on a free throw.
Aaron Bryant pulled down an offensive rebound for a stick back bucket at the 3:14 mark that put the Warriors up 5, 40 - 45.
The Vikings deployed the 1-3-1 half court press and were able to get two stops on the Warrior offense but couldn’t convert on a bucket of their own to narrow the gap as the clock elapsed below 2 minutes. The third time was a charm as Logan Carey plucked one over his head for a steal and led a break that uncorked the CCC player of the year as Hickman nailed a trey to narrow the lead to 2, 43-45.
Florkey hit two free throws for the Warriors to extend the lead back to four. Hickman responded again and shot a nice little runner on the right baseline with the perfect touch as it hopped in the net for two, 45-47.
With a minute remaining the Vikings fouled Aaron Deister who at the point of the game was 5 for 9, with 4 of those goals from beyond the arc and a perfect 2 for 2 from the free throw line. He had been a thorn in the Viking’s backside and led all scorers with 16 points. What appeared to be a certain 2 possession game turned out to be the break the Vikings were looking for as Deister missed both free throws. Ten seconds later Hickman completed another floater, this time right down the middle of the lane to tie the game at 47 with 50 seconds remaining in the game.
The Warriors worked the clock down to 11.1 seconds and called a time out to set up a final play. On the ensuing inbounds play the Vikings pressured the ball and DC was going no where fast with the basketball. #1 for Dayton Christian, Nathan Serenius broke toward the top of the key off the left wing with Hickman and Carey by his side. As Serenius attempted to pass the ball to the top of the key, the referee called a foul on Hickman for reaching in, with 1.3 seconds remaining in a game that would send a Division III representative for the Southwest region to the State Basketball Tournament at the Jerome Schottenstein Arena at THE Ohio State University. WOW! Hickman was beside himself; every Maimi East fan letting the referee that they were… slightly displeased and the Dayton Christian team and fans felt like a kid in a candy store with a Hundred Dollar bill that they just found in the street.
Serenius was a cool as the other side of the pillow and sank both free throws. Miami East called time out to set up their 3 second play with 1.3 seconds remaining.
East in bounded the ball to a charging Tyler Dunivan who leaped and caught the ball just short of the half court line. Deister made a play for the ball at the same time. As Dunivan beat Deister to the ball the referee called the collision a foul on Deister and Dunivan went to the line with 0.6 seconds left in the game. Miami East needed both free throws to send the game into overtime. Dunivan hit the first free throw. As the second free throw left his finger tips 3500 people held their breath but the shot hit the back of the iron and bounced left. Aaron Mitchell was able to get a hand on the ball but there was not enough time as the clock expired.
The Dayton Christian student section went nuts and emptied onto the floor. The East boys held their head up and waited patiently as Dayton Christian Head Coach Chip James and eventually the rest of the Warrior team came over to shake hands on a well played basketball game.
Always the example of class, an obviously disappointed Allen Mack talked to the media folks after the game. He was asked some very pointed questions about the missed free throw at the end of the game and the officiating in the last second of the game; Mack showed the example and attitude that every fan, player and parent should have when it comes to the game of basketball… and life for that matter. A teaching moment, if you will, from a guy who sees himself as Principal Mack first and not Coach Mack. Read on….
The first words from Coach Mack, “I would like to congratulate Dayton Christian on a tremendous season and an outstanding game. I wish them the best at the State Tournament. I am extremely proud of my guys in defeat as much as I am in victory.”
About the missed free throw at the end of the game… “We talk about to our team that every play is important in a game. We are a team. We accept responsibility as a team when we win and we also accept things as a collective group when we get beat and that is what happened here tonight. There are a lot of individual plays in a game that you can look at, but we all take responsibility; included coaches when that sort of thing happens.”
The officiating: “I don’t second guess officials. Those three were selected because they’re ones of the best in the business. We try to teach our kids that we take responsibility for things that we can control and officiating is not on of those things. We just didn’t make one play needed to win the ball game. Dayton Christian made that extra play and won it by one.”
Mack continued, “I’m very disappointed for our kids that they don’t get to experience all the excitement of a State Tounament; but on the other hand I’m very proud of their effort, composure and how they carried themselves during the game and after the game.”
On his out going senior class, that included Hickman, Carey, Kyle Karadak, Aaron Mitchell and Tyler Beard. “I shared in front of the team about each one of them individually. It’s a great game. It teaches you a lot of things that you will carry over into life; being passionate, doing your best in whatever you do and caring about the people around you. These guys did that and they were just a fun and outstanding group to coach. Sometime you have great players but with this group we had great players and great people. They were fun to coach and I really hate to see them go. I certainly wish them the best and I know that they are going to be successful after high school.”
Scoring by quarters
Dayton Christian…11…18…37…49
Miami East……….14…20…32…48
Dayton Christians
N. Serenius – 8
Deister – 16
Weber – 4
Florkey – 12
Bryant – 9
Allen – 0
Harris – 0
FG % 44.7 (17/38) / FT% 58.8 (10/17)
Total – 49
Miami East
Hickman – 14
Karadak – 5
Carey – 11
Mitchell – 3
Dunivan – 6
Wolf – 0
J. Hershberger – 0
Beard – 0
FG% 37.5 (18/48) / FT% 42.9 (6/14)
Total 48
3 Point Goals
DC – 5 (Deister 4, Weber)
ME – 6 (J. Hershberger 3, Hickman 2, Karadak)
Points in the Paint – DC 18, ME 20
Points off turnovers – DC 5, ME 15
2nd chance points – DC 7, ME 9
Fast break points – DC 2, ME 7
Bench points – DC 0, ME 9
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