By Tom Nader

Publisher and Editor

The worst feeling for a basketball coach is watching their team struggle to find answers to defend a player who suddenly finds themselves in the zone.

Stow’s Cam Marconi collects his dribble before going up for a layup, while Roosevelt’s Jaden Dennison (15) and EJ Church (3) try to defend.
Paisley Nader/Portage Sports

It is a helpless feeling.

Kent Roosevelt boys basketball’s Curtis Black, along with his staff, were living inside that moment on Friday when Stow senior point guard Cam Marconi completely took over the second half.

Marconi’s dribble-drives for easy layups turned into pinpoint passes to open 3-point shooters, relegating the Riders’ defense to pick their poison.

Unfortunately for the Roosevelt, they never found the potion and the Bulldogs erased a seven-point third-quarter deficit and outscored the Riders 18-4 in the fourth quarter to rally to a 56-45 Suburban League cross-division matchup in the season opener for both teams.

“Cam is a special player. He is a shifty ball-handler, and he can shoot, pass and create,” Black said. “Our original plan was to make him make decisions, and we wanted to stay connected to their outside shooters, which led to the layups he was getting. When we adjusted to try to play more helpside defense, he found the shooters.”

Roosevelt even tried a zone defense at one point, but Marconi and the Bulldogs were already in the midst of an offensive “avalanche” that the Riders could not deter.

Ryan Slocum, of Kent Roosevelt, goes up for a rebound between Stow’s Michael Calcaterra (left) and Andy Rickelman.
Paisley Nader/Portage Sports

For the game, Marconi finished with 29 points, seven assists, four rebounds and three steals.

In the third quarter, when Marconi sparked the Bulldogs’ offense, he scored or assisted on all 22 points.

He made 4-of-5 field goals (rebounding his only miss to be fouled on a putback attempt that led to two made free throws), hit a perfect 4-of-4 from the free-throw line to score 12 points, along with dishing out four assists.

Even still, Kent Roosevelt found itself right in the game late in the fourth quarter, trailing just 47-45 with 2:08 to play.

However, a couple of missed field goals and costly turnovers put the Riders in a position to foul and put the Bulldogs on the line to play against the clock. Stow hit 7-of-11 of its shots from the charity stripe in the fourth quarter to close out the game.

“I told the team that I thought that the first team who overcame adversity would win the game tonight. Unfortunately, that was Stow,” Black said. “I thought we had great effort and energy all night, which is something we have been talking about a lot, because we fell behind in the first half of about 90 percent of our games last year and we want to correct that. But we turned the ball over way too many times tonight and our free-throw shooting was horrendous, and we have to get better at both of those things if we are going to win close games like these.”

The Rough Riders’ Jaden Dennison drives against Stow defender Jake Carrington.
Paisley Nader/Portage Sports

Stow held a narrow edge throughout the first quarter, then Kent Roosevelt knotted the score 13-13 on a Cyler Foreman and-one. The next possession, the Riders, who helped hold the Bulldogs to just 1-of-15 shooting in the second quarter, took a 16-13 lead on a left-wing 3 from Jaden Dennison with 4:03 to play before halftime.

Roosevelt (0-1) held its lead throughout the remainder of the second quarter and all of the third quarter, growing the advantage to 23-16 midway through the third quarter, then clinging to a 41-38 lead after three quarters.

From the point the Bulldogs (1-0) trailed 23-16, they outscored Roosevelt 40-22 the rest of the way, with Marconi serving as the maestro and Kyle Boozer drilling three critical 3-pointers from the left corner along the way.

Boozer was the only player to join Marconi in double-digit scoring and finished with 11 points.

Kent Roosevelt was led offensively by Dennison, who had 17 points, along with six rebounds and three assists. Cyler Foreman added 13 points, while Carter Foreman had nine rebounds.

Stow guard Cam Marconi puts up a shot in the lane against the defense of Roosevelt’s Jaden Dennison.
Paisley Nader/Portage Sports

The Riders shot only 7-of-17 from the free-throw line, including 3-of-10 in the second half (1-for-6 in the fourth quarter).