UTICA – Utica senior forward Sean McCutcheon wore on his arm the scratches of a hard-fought battle between two rivals.
The Utica boys basketball team came up short to Northridge 44-42 in Licking County League play on Saturday, Dec. 12; in a game where every point was of utmost importance and every shot was earned.
“I’m just proud of the way they competed,” Utica coach Brian Radabaugh said about his team. “They just came up one possession short. As a competitor, you put yourself out there and you’ve gotta be able to live with the result and come back — win or lose — with the same attitude and the same mindset.”
Utica had to fight back from a 42-36 deficit after a pair of free throws by Northridge’s Ian Travis with 1:51 remaining in the game.
Jarrett Pfister’s putback with 10.6 seconds remaining made it a one-point game. Neither could Utica tie it nor Northridge put it away at the foul line from that point forward, and an Owen Storts contested jumper at the buzzer that missed the mark preserved the Viking victory.
“We did a good job of crawling back a couple of different times,” Radabaugh said. “So did they. They did the same thing to us. It was a hard-fought, physical game; and buckets were tough to come by.”
Daniel Rudolph sparked Utica in the fourth quarter. He hit a bank shot from just behind the foul line and added a putback on the next possession to help keep Utica in the game. He also forced a back-court violation in the final minute that led to a Sean McCutcheon basket to pull Utica within 42-39 with 38.5 seconds left.
“Rudy is our energy guy,” Radabaugh said. “We kinda needed a spark there, so we went to him. He’s a great kid and he works so hard every day. It was great to see him have his contributions.”
The Vikings (1-1, 1-0) led most of the way, building a 24-19 lead on a Justin Townley putback with 5:16 left in the third quarter.
Utica responded with 9-0 run — which was started by an Elijah Larue 3-pointer and finished by back-to-back Seth Cooper baskets — to take its first lead of the game.
Travis and Nic Minder each hit 3-pointers on consecutive possessions to put the Vikings back on top, and they never trailed again.
“I can’t say enough about these guys’ heart,” Northridge coach Bill Mallernee said. “The first game we were down seven with a minute to go and took it to overtime. This game, we were down (four), call a timeout and fight back and win the game. We keep telling (them) that if they have the heart, we’ll take care of everything else, and they have the heart.”
Travis and Minder led Northridge with 14 points apiece. Minder added five rebounds and Travis had two boards and two assists.
“They played nice games,” Mallernee said. “They’re still young and they’re learning. Ian was finishing nice in the first half with a couple of and-1s. They’re learning and they’re responding, and they’ll learn to be leaders in the future.”
J.D. Miller had seven points and five rebounds; and Townley added five points, seven rebounds and a pair of steals for the Vikings, who won the rebounding battle 29-22.
Cooper had 10 points, six rebounds, three steals and two assists; McCutcheon had nine points and a pair of blocks and Pfister led Utica (1-3, 0-2) with seven rebounds to go with four points.
“At the end of the day, we need to execute better and we need to rebound the ball better,” Radabaugh said. “There were too many second-chance points. We’ve gotta take care of business.”
