By Dan Weber
NKyTribune sports reporter
They came from two completely different places. Well, as completely different as two teams in the same district can be.
One, a small private school from Campbell County. The other, a large public school from Kenton County.
They also came from completely different directions.
Big school Scott could not have started out more poorly, going 3-11 in its first 14 games, then turning it around for a 10-6 regular season finish.
Small School Bishop Brossart, after jumping out 12-4 and winning the 10th Region All “A” Classic, finished at 1-11.
And here they were, in front of a near-capacity and extremely vocal crowd at Campbell County Middle School for the game nobody wants to play in.
“It’s the game everybody wants to avoid,” Scott Coach Steve Fromeyer said of the “2-3 game,” as it’s called.
Two oftentimes evenly matched teams — the second and third seeds in a district. “Especially this district,” Fromeyer said.
One will win and go on to the district finals – and next week’s 10th Region tournament. The other? Pack up the gear and go home. No more basketball for you. See you next November.
The memories go back over the years. “They have seven seniors, we have four,” said one of those seniors, Scott’s Brayden Howell, who would lead all scorers with 20 hard-earned points in Scott’s 69-57 win over Bishop Brossart.
“At the end of the day, our guys didn’t make the regional last year,” Fromeyer said. Who did? A Brossart team that sent the Eagles back to Taylor Mill. “In this district, it’s hot and emotional.”
On the floor and in the stands as the fans were engaged — and then some. The decibel level there matched the action on the floor.
“We talked and talked about that for days,” Fromeyer said of the Bishop Brossart matchup. “It’s been the topic of conversation for the last two weeks.”
And rightly so. The regular season game between these two in January – an 81-75 Scott win – might have been the moment that the Eagles realized they were on the right track.
“We changed everything,” Fromeyer said after the stumbling start, tired of having to watch his players’ parents coming to games and paying for tickets and stinking the joint out.
But ask the Scott players what changed and here’s how junior guard Dylan Giffen described it. “We just started working harder and listening to our coaches,” he said after scoring 14 points. “We owed it to our seniors.”
They knew it wasn’t going to be easy attacking the Mustangs’ 2-3 zone. “We worked on it all week,”Giffen said. And after falling behind 20-18 after the first quarter, they got it going on a 16-6 run that had the Eagles up, 36-30 at halftime in a game that had more collisions than an all-day session riding the bumper cars at Kings Island.
The loose ball scrums would make the Rugby Sevens proud. The contact was not for the faint-hearted. The officials let them play and play and play. And were there to break it up before things got out of hand, which was a credit to the players and coaches.
“We just kept our cool and handled adversity,” said Scott junior Connor Griffin who found holes on the baseline against the Brossart zone on his way to 13 points. “That’s what we were looking for.”
“Ben’s a great coach,” Fromeyer said of the former Covington Catholic assistant now at Brossart, Ben Franzen. “He knows the pieces he has and uses them well.”
And even though four of the Mustangs reached double figures – Mason Sepate and Anthony Kruse with 14 each, Logan Woosley with 13 and Brandon Bezold with 11 – it wasn’t enough.
And now the Eagles have two days – not two weeks – to get ready for a Thursday District 37 championship game against a No. 1-seeded Campbell County team that crushed Calvary Christian 87-23 in Tuesday’s first semifinal game. When the two teams met Jan. 27, Campbell County won 58-51.
BOX SCORE
BISHOP BROSSART 20 10 12 15—57
SCOTT 18 18 12 21—69
BISHOP BROSSART (13-16): Kruse 14, Woolsey 13, Bezold 11, Willike 2, Sepate 14, Gulley 0, Schumacher 3, TOTAL: 57.
SCOTT (14-17): Giffen 14, Griffin 13, Sarakatsannis 7, Coleman 6, Evans 2, Howell 20, Hunter 7, TOTAL: 69.