Garfield’s Eric Geddes soars to the basket for an easy first-half layup.
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By Tom Nader

Publisher and Editor

Garfield football is known for punishing teams with its relentless single-wing rushing attack.

Garfield’ junior Aidan Hill goes up for a layup. Hill finished Friday’s game with 19 points, 11 rebounds and six assists.
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On Friday, it was the G-Men boys basketball team that went the other direction and aired it out.

In a gameplan that head coach Andy Olesky said his team implemented after seeing something on film that stood out, Garfield found continued success by turning steals and defensive rebounds into quick and long outlet passes that resulted in countless uncontested layups on the other end.

Time after time, out of the team’s defensive two-three zone, post players Cade Rock, Nick Edic, Aidan Hill, along with Eric Geddes, sent lasers over the heads of all players to a streaking Preston Gedeon for what seemed at times like a layup drill.

The drill ended with the G-Men earning a 79-51 victory on Marty Hill Court in Windham.

It was the most points scored by the Garfield boys basketball team in four seasons, dating back to an 80-point effort in a win over Rootstown on Feb. 11, 2020.

“We are like any team, we always want to get the easy baskets,” Olesky said. “For tonight, we saw something specific that we thought we could capitalize on and our guys did a great job of executing. It really is a compliment to the guys that were low in our zone tonight. They were the ones working hard and getting after it to rebound the ball, then our guys on the top were reaping the easy rewards.”

Oftentimes it was Gedeon, who finished with a game-high 35 points on 12-of-22 shooting and also hit 9-of-13 from the free-throw line.

As a team, the G-Men (7-15) shot 40-of-62 (48 percent) from the floor. However, the team was just 5-of-22 (23 percent) from 3-point range, highlighting just how successful Garfield’s attack to the rim was — 25-of-40 on 2-point field goals for a shooting percentage of 63 percent.

Garfield’s Nick Edic (right) and Cade Rock (left) close off the driving lane and shot attempt by Windham’s Anthony Wiley.
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“Tonight, our offense was better than it has been. It looked more like what we want it to look like,” Olesky said. “Yes, we got our transition baskets, but even in the halfcourt, we had the ball moving and bodies moving.”

The moving ball produced 25 assists on 30 made field goals for the G-Men. Eric Geddes was the top distributor with eight assists, while Hill and Edic both delivered six assists each.

For Hill, it was a near triple-double, with the junior, playing on the court that is named after his grandfather Marty Hill, finishing with 19 points, 11 rebounds and six assists.

Edic added nine rebounds and two blocked shots.

“All of the coaches know how valuable Nick is to our team,” Olesky said. “His value is not always going to jump out at you from the box score, but he does so many things for this team, and he fills up every column on the stat sheet.”

Rock also had a nice all-around performance with eight points, seven rebounds, two steals and three blocked shots.

After a bit of a choppy start, with both teams seemingly playing a little tense in a rival matchup, the G-Men jumped out to a 19-12 first-quarter lead.

G-Men junior guard Preston Gedeon converts a transition layup for two of his game-high 35 points on Friday.
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Windham quickly pushed closer after Jake Collins buried a 3-pointer, which was followed up on a steal by Carlos Bruton on next possession that he converted into an easy layup to make Garfield’s lead just 21-17.

The G-Men very quickly halted that momentum and scored the next seven points all inside the game’s next minute to jump back out to 28-17.

The burst was sparked by a 3 from Gedeon, then it was time for the long outlets to shine through once again. The first one was delivered by Edic, who grabbed a rebound and sent a pass more than halfway down the court to Gedeon for a layup.

Rock then took the next rebound and, similarly, heaved a long, but controlled outlet to Geddes, who put in a layup uncontested.

In what seemed like fractions of a second, the G-Men rebuilt a double-digit lead and the Bombers (7-14) never got their deficit to under 10 again. By halftime, Garfield led 39-23.

To open the third quarter, Hill and Gedeon sank back-to-back 3s to push the score to 45-27 and the lead for the G-Men continued to expand from there.

Bruton led the Bombers in scoring with 29 points and was the only player to reach double figures for Windham. Brandon Petrich added eight points and six rebounds.

Garfield’s Nick Edic drives the lane against Windham defender Brandon Petrich.
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