Louisville Sweeps Up North Canton 69-60

Video:


Louisville 69, North Canton 60

They say revenge is dish best served cold and it was freezing for North Canton Tuesday Night.  A determined Louisville Leopards (10-7) basketball team blitzed the Hoover Vikings (10-7) all night long in rout to a 69-60 victory.  Toby Minster led the Leopards storm with 23 points, while Mitch Sluss and Owen Gramoy combined for 27.

64-42, that was the average of score of the annual Louisville-Hoover basketball rivalry in the last 9 meetings, all of which North Canton won.  They outscored Louisville by 200 points (580-380) and won by double-digits in every single game.

Toby Minster was one step ahead of the Vikings all night long as he scored a team-high 23 points.

Flash forward to Tuesday night. An outside spectator probably would have thought that Louisville was the bully of the series.  After playing to a 14-12 lead, Louisville put together a 9-2 run and never looked back.  The Vikings would score and Louisville would answer right back, many times with three-point daggers.

In the second quarter, Louisville shot a stifling 64% from the floor, made 7 of 9 free throws, and made both their three-pointers from Sluss and Mike Kelly.  However, leading the charge for the Leopards was Minster, who had a perfect half.  He was 5 of 5 from the field, 6 of 6 from the free throw line, and even lobbed up a three-pointer that hit home.  Things were clicking on all cylinders for Louisville as they took advantage of 11 first half turnovers by Hoover to take a shocking double-digit 42-30 lead into the break.

Louisville came out swinging in the second half as well.  Gramoy hit a 2 three-pointers to give Louisville their biggest leads of the game at 45-30 and 52-37.  But, the Vikings followed that up with a 10-0 run, which included 3 three-pointers.  Nyles Evans hit 2 of those triples, while Dom Iero also made 2 in the quarter.  Evans finished with a game-high 28 points on the evening for the Vikings, while Iero scored all his points off of 5 three-balls.  Hoover shrunk the lead to 54-49 by the end of the third quarter.

In previous games the fourth quarter is where the Leopards collapsed, but the Leps were determined to not let that happen Tuesday night.  Louisville initiated their “Super Leopards Defense” and forced Hoover to shoot just 27% from the field.  The Vikings went cold from long range, as they shot just 1 of 10 from beyond the stripe.  Minster laid in 6 more points and the Leopards made 5 of 6 free throws to take take a double-digit lead.  The Leps took care of the ball the rest of the way and Coach Tom Siegfried cleared the benches in the final minute before Louisville earned their first victory over North Canton since the undefeated season of 2000-01.

NOTES:

  • The win is Louisville’s largest margin of victory over Hoover since the 1998-99 season when the Leopards won 60-50 over the Vikings.
  • Louisville’s last win against Hoover came in the season opener of the perfect 2000-01 regular season.  The Leps escaped the Viks that night 47-45.
  • Leopard Nation is currently working on the boys and girls basketball history section.  Only 2000-2010 is complete at this point, but you can check out the scores as they are posted here: LOUISVILLE BOYS BASKETBALL YEAR-BY-YEAR RESULTS.


PICTURES:

– Photos taken by and courtesy of Lisa Gramoy



STATISTICS:

LEOPARDS: Minster 8 6-6 23, Sluss 3 6-10 14, Gramoy 4 2-2 13, Schooley 4 2-3 10, Kelly 1 2-2 5, Lairson 1 0-0 2, Perez 0 2-2 2, TOTALS 21-47 20-25 69.

3PT (7-16 44%): Gramoy (3), Sluss (2), Kelly (1), Minster (1)

TEAM FG: 21-47 45%

TEAM FT: 20-25 80%

VIKINGS: Evans 9 7-9 28, Iero 5 0-0 15, Erb 2 2-2 6, Arnold 2 0-0 4, Feinberg 1 1-2 4, Ducey 1 0-0 2, Moore 0 1-2 1, TOTALS 20-51 11-15 60.

3PT (9-31 29%): Iero (5), Evans (3), Feinberg (1)

TEAM FG: 20-51 39%

TEAM FT: 11-15 73%

NEXT GAME: The Leopards will host the Minerva Lions Friday, February 18.  JV will tip-off at 6:00 PM, while Varsity will follow starting at approximately 7:30 PM.

JV SCORE: North Canton Hoover 66, Louisville 34

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