It's March Madness, high school-style Division 1: Sl Xavier vs. Moeller
GCL showdown, Part III Winner will play for state title By Carey Hoffman Enquinr rrmtn"lmtor
The ground rules for tonight's l'vloeller-St Xavier state semifinal arc simple: FirSt one to 59 v..ins. That wa.<> the winner's point total in the teams' first two games tllis season, whlch the Greater Catholic League rivals split But whether anyone will even approach that total today at Ohlo State's Value City Arena at 8:30p.m., with a trip to the Division I state title game on the line, is hlghly question· able. "Because both teams are so fa. miliar with each other. it's going to be a grind to get a basket at any time,~ St X coach Scott Martin said. "I would tend to agree with that," adds Moeller coach Carl Kremer. "I think every basket in tllis game \'iill be hotly contested. I look for it to be a tight game from beginning to end." The unknown factors in tonight's game are the setting and the stakes that are on the line. Otherwise, it's hard to imagine a tournament meetin!{ betwcm two teams that know each other any bet· ter than these two. ::vloellcr comes in with a 22·3 re· cord, St X at 20-5. Some of the players have compet· ed against each other since pee-wee ball in both football and basketball. They play together in the summers. They've also played at least twice a year in GCLplay, with tllis being the thlrd occasion since Martin became St Xcoach 10 years ago that the two rivals have met in tournament play.
The last time was three years ago, when the current seniors were freshmen, and :\-1oeller won by one point in the sectional final. Moeller also beat St X in the tournament in 1999. 1bis year, St Xwon at home over Moellt>r 5946 on Jan. 15. But Moeller's leading scorer, 6-foot-8 Ryan Chlldress, was suspended and didn't play. With Chlldress back on the court and contributing 19 points and 10 rebounds, Moeller won the rt>turn game in its home gym 59-49 Feb.l2. One personnel factor that could make tllis game different is the return to health of 6-6 St Xsenior Kyle Giblt>r. He played limited minutes in the second game but is back to full health now after breaking hls foot playing tight end during football season. In St X's tournament upset of Ohio's No. 2-ranked Division I team, Springfield South, Gibler had B points and 10 rebounds. He gives Martin another option, along with 6-7 Greg Swt>eney and 6-6 Robby Schocnhoft, in trying to match up physically v.ith Moeller's two 6-8 seniors, Chlldn·ss (16.4 points per game) and Tyler Dierkers (12.7 ppg). "Hopefully, Kyle can help us out on the boards," Martin says. "I think that's really Moeller's strength, their rebounding. They control the boards and that makes it tough to win games against them." If the inside game becomes more even, that could place more of a demand on Moeller sophomore Troy Tabler. St X star guard Johnny Wolf
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6 The Enquirer/Steven M. Herppich
Maurice Scales and his St. X teammates split two regular-season games with Moeller and shared the GCL South title.
(22.7 ppg) has shown the ability to score against Moeller in each of the first two games, with 29 and 18 points, respectively. Tabler is Moeller's best perimeter threat Moeller's sparkplug, 5-10 senior Pat Watt, has been the primary defender matched upwiththe6-3Wolf the first two games. "He's done a really good job on hlm," Martin says of Watt 'They've tried to crowd Johnny with a lot of
players and it's really made it hard for hlm to get touches." Regardless of how it plays out, one of these Cincinnati powers will advance to Saturday's state title game, whlch will tip off less than 24 hours after Friday's late semifinal concludes. Given how intense and physical the Moeller·St X semifinal is likely to be, that will present its own set of challenges.