COPLEY: The Copley basketball team should make a commercial.
It can stand in front of the camera, arms around one another, and ask rhetorically, “Can you hear us now? Can you see us now?”
If not, you will be able to find the Indians at Canton Memorial Civic Center on Wednesday, playing in the Division I district semifinals.
The Indians, ignored all season by the pollsters and dismissed by practically everyone else, made believers of a lot of people a few weeks ago when they manhandled state-ranked Wooster. They probably convinced a whole bunch more Saturday when they ran past visiting Canton McKinley 76-62 in a sectional championship game.
The victory raised the Indians’ record to 23-1 overall, and they now have won 47 of their past 49. None, perhaps, as big as the latest.
“This will open some eyes,” said Copley coach Mark Dente, who has told people all season that his team was better than most people thought. “I don’t think there were a lot of people who felt we could win.”
The same feeling will probably permeate the talk show airwaves and basketball junkie websites this week as top-seeded and state-ranked Jackson (22-2) is next up. The Polar Bears, ranked fourth in the final state poll, advanced by beating Garfield 99-56.
“We know they’re a good team,” guard Austin Brenner said of Jackson. “But we’re excited for it. Our goals all season were to win the Suburban League and get to the Civic Center.”
Brenner and fellow guards Brian Roberts Jr., Keyshawn Hill and Jacob Williams will present Jackson with an issue it has not seen often.
Those four carried the Indians to their biggest win of the season and maybe the biggest win in school history. Roberts, the son of two basketball-playing parents who starred at Ellet — Brian Roberts Sr. and Markita Griffin — led everyone with 27 points and had three steals and two rebounds. Brenner, the quarterback on Copley’s successful football team, finished with 13 points, seven rebounds and two steals. Hill, a 6-0 senior, scored 11 of his 15 points in the second half and battled his way to five rebounds and helped keep an eye on McKinley’s talented Darryl Straughter.
Williams, who will play football at Tiffin, also scored 13 points — all in the first half — and also helped on Straughter.
Straughter, a Walsh University recruit, had 22 points, eight rebounds and three steals. No other starter was close to double figures for the Bulldogs (13-10).
“We knew he was a great player,” Williams said. “I knew I had help defensively so I could pressure him. If he got by me I knew I had help.”
Copley did not trail after the opening minute as Roberts (five points), Williams (five points) and Hill (four points) helped build a 21-12 lead at the end of the first quarter. Brenner joined in during the second quarter, scoring seven points as the Indians extended their lead to 17. They were never threatened after that.
“It was a game of runs and every time we scored we couldn’t get stops,” McKinley coach Rick Hairston said. “You have to give them credit. That’s a pretty good basketball team.”
People are starting to find that out. For some, it was too late.
Read the high school blog at http://www.ohio.com/preps.