By Dan Weber
NKyTribune sports reporter
Not the place you’d ever want to be in the 9th Region All “A” Classic boys basketball tournament, Newport Central Catholic coach Jake Luhn said.
Playing St. Henry for the second time this season after winning the first game.
The difference on this night for a St. Henry team that did all the right things the last couple of minutes for a 61-57 win at the Beechwood-hosted tournament?
Easy answer for Luhn. “Dave Faust,” he said of the soon to be historic Crusader coach. “It’s a tall task to beat him once a year much less twice,” Luhn said.
And it has been for a long, long time as Faust, a 1977 NewCath grad and basketball star there, is closing in on Kenney Shields’ 9th Region basketball record for wins. That number is 460, compiled while Shields, who would go on to coach successfully at NKU, was at St. Thomas and Highlands.
But don’t ask Faust how close he is to the record.
“I have no idea,” he says, “I’ll know when they tell me.”
And all it means, he says, of all those wins is how many great players he’s had play for him over the years.
Those who keep the numbers say Tuesday’s win was No. 457 for Faust, who did himself no favors this season with an early schedule that had his Crusaders playing the likes of Cooper, Conner, Highlands, Covington Catholic, Cincinnati St. Xavier and Louisville St. Xavier.
But his team’s sixth win (against eight losses) this season does Faust no favors in the win column as Tuesday’s win moves St. Henry into Friday’s semifinals against region dark horse – although maybe no longer so – Newport, the second-game winner at Beechwood.
But first things first in this game of folks who know one another well. Dan Shea, for example, a great NewCath baseball player in his day, Class of ’56, was there to watch his two grandsons, Carson Shea and Ethan Kaiser – second-generation St. Henry athletes on their own – start at guard for the Crusaders.
At crunch time, however, it was up to inside guys Jack Grayson, Matt Resing and Braden Fedders, who split 45 points (21 for Grayson, 14 for Resing, 10 for Fedders) that made the difference as St. Henry came from down three, 55-52, to score the nine of the last 11 points.
In a game that had been tied seven times with innumerable lead changes, the final run would be the decider.
“We just needed a spark at the end,” said the 6-foot-2 Grayson who favors spin moves in the lane. “It’s lucky the shots went in.”
“They out-executed us,” Luhn said, of the final 2 ½ minutes. Faust went another direction.
“They outhustled us,” Faust said of a NewCath team that came up short. “That team played hard for 32 minutes.”
On that the two coaches agreed. “It’s the price of admission for us,” Luhn said of how hard his undersized NewCath team must play, especially when it was limited by leading scorer Coby Kramer’s early fouls that limited him to 24 minutes and 12 points and Jase Iles’ three quick fouls in three minutes that had him disqualified at the finish.
“We just made some shots,” Faust said of the Crusaders’ 20 of 35 (57.1 percent) from the field. “And our defense made them take a couple of tough shots.”
But 17 of 30 from the free throw line won’t get it done, Faust said. Nor will his team’s 21 turnovers.
If they play like that, Faust said, there’s one thing you can look for Friday in the city rivalry game between the two longtime Newport foes.
“A lot of Newport dunks,” Faust said.
NEWCATH 21 12 10 14—57
ST. HENRY 20 13 9 19—61
NEWCATH (9-8): Barth 0-0-2-2, Runyon 3-2-0-8, Simons 4-0-2-10, Rouse 1-0-3-5, Kramer 5-0-2-12, Collopy 0-0-0-0, Luhn 0-0-0-0, Iles 2-0-2-6, Mann 5-3-1-14, TOTALS: 20-7-10-57.
ST. HENRY (6-8): Shea 1-0-0-2, Kaiser 2-1-4-9, Grayson 8-1-4-21, Resing 5-1-3-14, Fedders 2-0-6-10, Flanagan 2-1-0-5, Lemmond 0-0-0-0. TOTALS: 20-4-17-61.
Photos by Dale Dawn