Mike's Saturday Evening Standouts

The OHSAA Division I district finals for Region 2 were held at the Ohio Expo Center on Saturday, March 1st. In this article I'll break down the standouts from the two evening district finals that featured Dublin Coffman Vs Pickerington North and Reynoldsburg Vs Hilliard Bradley.    McClure was cooking on Saturday getting to his spots and rising up for tough contested shots off the dribble and shooting an extremely high percentage on these looks. At the rim, McClure had a couple tough finishes including an early and-1 layup and a lefty finish past a shot contest. To end the third quarter, McClure had his second and-1 of the game and while Pickerington North made him work for every bucket, it didn't matter as McClure was in the zone. In crunch time McClure turned to the setup man with the assist to tie the game with under a minute to play in regulation and a pair of assists in overtime to help his team pull away. Brillant performance from McClure on the big stage.     The individual match-up between Bates and McClure was as fun as any I've seen this postseason and while they weren't guarding each other for a majority of the game, they were going back and forth handing out buckets against the top perimeter defenders each side could throw at them. Early in the game Bates had it rolling with a pull-up mid-range shot, a top of key 3-pointer and some layups at the rim including a sweet acrobatic finish in transition. Battling through injury late in the game, Bates had a pair of steals that led directly to layups and played his heart out on the court. One of the more impressive stock risers this season, Bates has taken a huge jump from Sophomore to Junior year.     A quarterback prospect with numerous FBS offers, Mock was also named to the all-OCC team on the hardwood and showed why on Saturday with a solid performance. Mock has a good frame and can knock down shots on the perimeter, his strength and athleticism also allows him to make an impact as a defender and rebounder as well.     In what was the most exciting game of the weekend in Columbus filled with storylines, the second seeded Reynoldsburg Raiders erased a 15-point deficit and ended up escaping with a narrow victory over the upset minded Hilliard Bradley Jaguars. While the game featured many runs throughout on both sides, Bowens offensive rebound that led to an and-1 layup in the fourth quarter was pivotal turning point in the game. Bowens was crashing the glass hard and finished in the paint a couple of times off cuts, putbacks and lob plays.     Hilliard Bradley got out to a 15 point lead in the first half thanks to [player_tooltip player_id='2140168' first='Ben' last='Mirgon'] setting the table for [player_tooltip player_id='2461095' first='Kyp' last='Norris'] and Reed-Davis to fire away from long range and this underclassmen trio were the catalysts for the shock start. I was most impressed with Reed-Davis who made shots confidently off the catch, made good decisions against the full court pressure and competed as an athlete on both ends of the court. While coming up just short is disappointing for the Jags, they should be excited with how their 2027 and 2028 prospects played

The OHSAA Division I district finals for Region 2 were held at the Ohio Expo Center on Saturday, March 1st. In this article I'll break down the standouts from the two evening district finals that featured Dublin Coffman Vs Pickerington North and Reynoldsburg Vs Hilliard Bradley.