Jan 9, 2025
Staff photo / Brian Yauger Mathews senior Dom Toto looks for an open man during the fourth quarter of Wednesday’s game. Toto finished with 18 points.
VIENNA — In a wide open Northeastern Athletic Conference, Wednesday’s contest between Mathews and Fairport Harbor could end up being a decisive one as the season winds down.
Unfortunately for the Mustangs, inexperience and passiveness in the offensive game got the better of them as Fairport Harbor upended Mathews, 64-52.
“Our league this year is exceptionally wide open,” Mathews coach Mike Weymer said. “Bristol’s good, Grand Valley, Fairport, Pymatuning Valley, us. There’s a lot of teams in that mix, and everybody’s kind of jumbled up right now. Tonight was a big game. I thought we were ready for it. I thought we played well early on and kind of hit the skids offensively there at the end. We’re at our best when we’re putting four or five guys in double figures, and we’ve done that a good amount of time this year.
“Tonight, down the stretch, we wanted our senior, Dom Toto, to put the Superman cape on and go and get it done for us. When you’re playing a game like that, everybody’s got to look to score the ball. Everybody’s got to look to be assertive. I felt like, outside of a couple of big shots from a couple of our guys toward the end, we were just being way too passive and hoping for Dom to go and do something for us.”
Toto finished the game with a game-leading 18 points. Logan Linkesh tacked on 15 for the Mustangs.
After a 21-point first quarter, Mathews was held to just seven points in the second quarter and went into the locker room tied at 28.
The Skippers are a tough team to counter when their defense ramps up, and Mathews couldn’t maintain its typical fast pace.
“They’re an aggressive defensive team, there’s no doubt about it,” Weymer said. “They’ve got great guard play, good bigs, and I felt like we kind of slowed down offensively. We weren’t playing as fast and looking to push the pace, which we did early on. That’s hard. For a team like us that presses and plays 75 possession games, for us to kind of sit back and do some different things today defensively, I do think that impacted our offense a little bit in spots where we just weren’t playing as fast as we normally do.”
Charlie Beardslee led Fairport Harbor with 17 points. Both Costellanos — Yomar and Jan — each finished with 14 points.
The Mustangs (9-2, 5-2 NAC) will regroup and get ready for Friday’s tilt at Chalker.
“We’ll get it back on track,” Weymer said. “Going 9-2 through the first 11 is a good start. The kids gained a lot of confidence, a lot of experience. Tonight, we just just fell short. I just felt like we were passive in spots looking for Toto exclusively, when we have plenty of guys that can score.”
With Mathews’ inexperience, a game like this could serve as a blessing in disguise come tournament time. They’ve just got to take the right lessons from it.
“We’ve just got to get better (and get more experience under our belts),” Weymer said. “Our underclassmen, a lot of them are going through those experiences now.”
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