Hawken graduate Will Starks represents John Carroll’s White Group.
Starks and his running mates don’t start games. They sometimes watch the closing seconds from the bench.
It’s part of being a young player in coach Mike Moran’s five-in, five-out system.
‘It’s very non-traditional,’ Starks said. ‘Bringing in us guys from high school that are used to playing a ton of minutes aren’t the starting guys on the floor. The way we play, humbles guys.’
The systems also confuses opponents such as Baldwin Wallace, the cross-town rival the Blue Streaks edged, 71-69, on Wednesday at DeCarlo Varsity Center.
The Yellow Jackets resorted to a zone defense against the White Group, and the unit consisting of Starks, Simon Kucharewicz, Doug Caputo, Tim Ludlow and Derik Young went a combined 13 of 22 from the field.
Starks, a sophomore guard, didn’t miss. He went 5-for-5, scoring 12 points in just 14 minutes. Kucharewicz had a similar points-to-minute ratio, scoring a team-high 14 in 16 minutes.
Their play helped John Carroll (10-4, 4-3 Ohio Athletic Conference) end a three-game losing streak against Baldwin Wallace (7-7, 3-4).
‘This was a big one,’ said Starks, who entered Wednesday averaging 5.2 points and 11.8 minutes per game. ‘My shots were falling. Everybody scouts me as a shooter and that’s probably my No. 1 skill set. Tonight, they were overplaying me a bit, and I got a couple of guys on their heels.’
After trailing the entire final 28 minutes, Baldwin Wallace had Starks and everybody else associated with John Carroll leaning backward by scoring eight of the game’s final 10 minutes.
With 11.3 seconds left, Baldwin Wallace guard Jaron Crowe (Mentor), who had 12 points and four assists, inbounded the ball to Kyle Payne. Payne curled into the paint, where he was swarmed by Kucharewicz, Danny Wallack (Mentor) and Jake Hollinger (Chardon). Kucharewicz tipped Payne’s pull-up jumper. The misdirected shot bounced off the left side of the rim. Payne, who scored a game-high 19 points, tried tipping his follow-up attempt upward, but Kucharewicz grabbed the rebound and heaved the ball as the buzzer sounded.
‘We lost on a second shot off a last-second shot at Muskingum,’ said Hollinger, referring to an 87-85 setback earlier this month. ‘We were just screaming, ‘Box out, box out.’ Simon got a body on the guy and made him throw up a second shot that wasn’t good. It was obviously real tense.’
Baldwin Wallace coach Duane Seldon said the Yellow Jackets received the look they wanted.
‘It was one of the better players in the league with the ball,’ Seldon said. ‘We got a pretty good shot for him. We will take that any day.’
The teams were tied eight times in the first 12 minutes, an expected start considering many of the 110 games between the schools have been decided by 10 or less points.
What followed was unexpected: John Carroll’s David Henderickson went on a 3-point binge. Four straight possessions. Four attempts in front of the Baldwin Wallace bench. Four makes in a 2:03 stretch. A John Carroll lead that rested at 25-23 expanded to 37-25. The Blue Streaks entered halftime leading 41-36.
‘I thought a big thing was that David Henderickson heated up,’ Moran said. ‘He had that one stretch, where bing, bing, bing. … He hit four in a row. That was a huge landmark that just gave us confidence.’
Henderickson represents John Carroll’s Blue Group, the five players who started the game. Henderickson only scored one point in the second half. It didn’t matter. The White Group had an efficient night.
‘They are really stepping up to the plate,’ said Hollinger, a starter who scored 13 points and grabbed seven rebounds in 25 minutes. ‘It benefits us a lot because we get a rest and they get to run. It brings people into the program because we play a lot of people.’