Thursday’s game
What: Division IV district boys basketball final, Middletown Christian (15-10) vs. Yellow Springs (19-6)
When: 6 p.m.
Where: University of Dayton Arena, 1801 S. Edwin Moses Blvd., Dayton
The Middletown Christian Eagles will battle the Yellow Springs Bulldogs for a Division IV district championship Thursday evening at the University of Dayton Arena.
The winner, of course, will be the Metro Buckeye Conference.
The MBC rivals knocked off top-seeded opponents during sectional play to earn a prep boys basketball rubber match. Yellow Springs, the conference champion, won 69-34 on Jan. 15 at home. MCS rallied from a 15-point halftime deficit and won 77-67 in triple overtime on Feb. 15 at home.
“We’re excited for the opportunity,” Bulldogs coach Steve Grasso said. “It’s pretty neat to have two teams from the same conference kind of upset their brackets and show up in the district finals.”
“I agree 100 percent,” Eagles coach Eric Gwinn said. “I think it’s a cool thing.”
Yellow Springs is 19-6 and hasn’t been to a district final since the 2005-06 season. Middletown Christian is 15-10 and making history with its first appearance at this level.
“I think some nerves might be natural,” Gwinn said. “Both teams are striving to play great defense and execute on offense as much as possible. That’s what it’s going to come down to once everybody shakes off the nerves.”
Isaiah Taylor, a 6-foot-4, 230-pound senior forward, leads the Bulldogs. He’s the MBC Player of the Year and is averaging 12 points and nine rebounds per game. Grasso describes him as “a guard in a big guy’s body.”
Kaner Butler, a 6-1 senior forward, is averaging 14 points to lead the scoring for Yellow Springs, which starts five seniors.
“We’re able to do a couple different things, which I think makes us a little bit difficult to play against,” Grasso said. “If we have some opportunities to get up and down, we’ll certainly go, but if it’s something where we need to grind them out, we can do that as well.”
Grasso said the Bulldogs have come a long way in his three years at the helm. He can clearly remember his first game at Yellow Springs, an 85-46 beating at the hands of London that began a 6-16 campaign.
“It’s a special group,” Grasso said. “Everything that we’ve gone through — good, bad and indifferent — has brought us to the point where we are today.”
MCS shot 29.8 percent from the floor and made 5 of 25 treys in its first meeting with the Bulldogs this year. In the rematch, the Eagles shot 51 percent from the field and converted 9 of 20 treys, with senior guard Jamaal Hunter marking 27 points.
“We got a few shots to drop and really started competing at a lot higher level than we had been,” Gwinn said. “Sometimes we’ve done a really good job of making shots, sometimes we haven’t. I think a lot of high school teams operate like that.
“Before sectionals started, I think most of the kids sort of believed we could do this. It was just a matter of figuring out how we could get that accomplished. Personally, I think the biggest thing is that we’ve done a better job on the defensive end of the floor. The kids have done a great job of really being focused on defense.”
The MCS-Yellow Springs winner will advance to the regional semifinals Tuesday at Fairmont’s Trent Arena, facing either St. Henry or Lima Perry at 8 p.m.
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