River Valley holds off Granville to earn district title berth

On Mar 2, 2023

WESTERVILLE — Rodney Brown knew Carson Smith was ready to go before the Vikings took the floor Wednesday night at Worthington Christian’s Hogue Center for a Division II boys basketball district semifinal game against Granville.

“When I looked him in the eyes and said we’re going to the district title (game) before this game, the look he gave me, I just knew. I could feel it. He is that kid, and he was amazing. Holy cow,” Brown said, River Valley’s head coach.

Smith led a 3-point barrage from the opening tip, scoring from deep eight seconds into the game, and he kept it up all night.

Behind the 6-foot-4 junior guard’s game-high 25 points, the second seeded Vikings held off No. 7 seed Granville 58-54 to advance to their first district final since 2006-07. River Valley will face No. 3 seed Bishop Watterson for the championship Saturday at 1 p.m. at Central Crossing near Grove City as the Eagles took out No. 11 seed London 55-29 Wednesday night at Hamilton Township.

“It just happens. Once the first one goes in, you can tell if it’s going to go in or not,” Smith said of his hot night.

The Vikings never trailed and only allowed it to be tied once at 6-6 midway through the first quarter, but they needed their incandescent shooting to hold off Granville all night.

In the first quarter, RV led 18-10 — all on 3-point baskets. Smith hit four of them in the period and then started the second quarter with a 3-ball from the left wing to make it 21-10.

“We knew about Carson Myers. He didn’t score as what he normally does. I thought we did a good job on him,” Granville coach Chris Powell said of the first-team All-Central District pick who ended with nine points, more than 12 under his average. “Carson Smith, one of his shots my assistant coach is screaming about the closeout not being very good. I said, ‘Coach, I think you’re going to look at that film and say he just rose up over a 6-3 kid and it didn’t matter.’ He was in the zone and locked in. That’s a good player making plays.”

But to their credit, the Blue Aces never wilted against the early firestorm. Instead, Granville chipped away at the lead, using a 9-2 run in the second period to climb back into it. River Valley never led by more than 10 points (and that was for just 28 seconds) the rest of the night as the Aces continued to hang around.

“Coach Powell does a good job, and he’s a good friend of mine,” Brown said. “I knew they’d play hard, and they battled. They really battled us.

“They play a tough schedule. They’re gritty. (Dante) Varrasso is just tough. He plays football and is a tough kid. He’s guarding a guy who is twice his size practically in height and he’s just out there battling him because he’s tough. They’re going to be a tough out next year with all those guys back. They’re good. The little freshman (Jakob Culver) who hit all those threes, holy moly.”

The Vikings took a 29-25 edge into halftime. They came out to make five of their six shots from the floor and 4 of 5 from the foul line in the third quarter, but ended up treading water, still only up by four points heading into the fourth quarter.

“We have an expectation. We’re going to be a team that rebounds,” Powell said, a former head coach at Highland. “We’re going to be a team that plays in the paint. We’re going to be a team that posts up. We’re the 5-10 club. Our guys embrace that. They want to play tough. They want to play big.”

As he did in the other quarters, Smith started things off with a 3-pointer from the wing and then cut for a layup from Chase Ebert to put the Vikes back up 49-40 with 5:05 left. An Ebert drive and a Brock Mosher corner 3-pointer put them up 54-44 with 3:20 left, but the Aces answered back with back-to-back 3-pointers from Varrasso and Culver to again slice it to four points.

Mosher made two free throws with 2:08 left to stop the run and bump it to 56-50, but a Verrrasso drive, an RV turnover and a Culver fastbreak spinning layup made it 56-54 with 67 seconds remaining.

After a series of Granville fouls, Mosher went back to the line and made both ends of the one-and-one with 30 seconds left, but the Aces committed an over-and-back violation after a bad pass with 9.7 seconds left, allowing River Valley to survive and advance.

“In the tournament, you want to win any way you can,” Brown said.

River Valley shot 60 percent from the field, making 18 of 30 shots, plus was 12 of 13 from the foul line. Granville was at just under 50 percent, going 22 of 46 as well as nailing 4 of 5 free throws. The Aces outrebounded RV 20-16 and forced four more turnovers than they committed 12-8.