By Denise Tucker (For OzarksSportsZone.com)
CLEVER – The Catholic Fightin’ Irish jumped out to an 8-0 lead to start the game and held off a young Hartville squad for an 81-70 tournament-title victory in the 85th annual Clever Invitational on Saturday afternoon.
Catholic seniors Charlie O’Reilly and Jake Branham hit back-to-back 3-pointers and junior Will Morrison added a basket on a pull-up jumper, forcing Hartville to call a timeout less than two minutes into the game.
“You let a team as talented and well-coached as Catholic jump out on you and get a great big lead, it’s going to be a grind to try and come back and beat them,” Hartville coach Brett Reed said. “Their team’s got a lot of seniors; they’re very poised, very composed. We knew we had our hands full tonight.”
Catholic, which improved to 4-0 on the season, continued to build its lead, going up by as many as 12 points (15-3) before Hartville came charging back by going on an 8-0 run of its own to pull within four. Back-to-back buckets from Michael Manzardo and Branham put the Irish up 19-11 at the end of the first quarter.
“When you’re playing a team like Hartville that has great tradition, we have the utmost respect for those guys and know that they’re going to play hard,” Catholic coach Dustin Larsen said. “They’re never going to go away
“It’s still early in the season and we’re just trying to continue to get better each night. We did a lot of great things tonight, and there’s a lot of things we’ll keep working on to continue to get better. That’s what this time of year is all about.”
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Hartville’s lone senior Wyatt Mahan provided a spark off the bench with a couple of steals and nine points in the second quarter on his way to a team-high 25 points.
But the Irish had too much fire-power Saturday, getting points from nine different players, including double figures from Branham (game-high 32 points), Morrison (16) and Manzardo (12).
“(Friday) night, we had a balance of four or five guys in double figures, tonight we had three,” Larsen said. “That’s the great thing about our team is our balance. When someone is struggling, not just one person has to do it all. We have good balance and our guys can pick each other up and play as a team. We’re still trying to get our timing down and execution this early in the season.”
With the experience and weapons that Catholic possesses, Hartville (3-1) wanted to slow down Branham.
“It’s hard to focus on just one player because they have so many good ones, but our game plan was to try to get the ball out of Branham’s hands, and try to help on him when he drives,” Reed said. “Jake’s a handful of a job to get done. He’s a great player and was too much for us tonight.”
Larsen praised his team for how it competed to hold off the Eagles and win the tournament title.
“I’m just proud of our guys for the week that we had – we’re at a good place,” Larsen said. “(Hartville) is going to have a good season. I think we’re going to have a good season. Now it’s time to just keep getting better.”
For Hartville, which has won five straight district titles and has no returning starters, getting to the championship game as the sixth seed was a confidence-booster.
“Digging an early hole sure didn’t help, but I was proud of our boys for the way they chipped away and continued to battle all night,” Reed said.
“I told the boys in the locker room, ‘we’re close. We’re close to being a top-tier team.’ If we can beat some of the caliber teams we beat up here, of course, and play Catholic and compete with them, we’re close. There’s some little things that I think we can fix and we’ve got a chance, I think, by the end of the year after we mature a little bit, to surprise some people.”
85th ANNUAL CLEVER INVITATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP
CATHOLIC 81, HARTVILLE 70
HARTVILLE – 11-20-22-17—70
CATHOLIC – 19-26-16-20—81
HARTVILLE (3-1) – Ryce Piper 14, Wyatt Mahan 25, Braden Branstetter 9, Brady Ward 6, Cody Mahan 2, Eli Cook 14.
CATHOLIC (3-1) – Jake Branham 32, Michael Monzardo 12, Charlie O’Reilly 7, Tyson Riley 6, Will Morrison 16, Hunter Brown 1, Will Squibb 3, Zach Howell 2, Ben Galligos 2.
Third place – Fair Grove 56, Clever 43
Fifth place – Hillcrest 54, Mount Vernon 52
