MIDDLETOWN — Chandler Shields got the Wade E. Miller Arena crowd on their feet with a breakaway slam.
Then he did it again seconds later.
Shields’ second dunk gave the Middletown High School boys basketball team a 9-8 lead that it wouldn’t relinquish, and the Middies cruised by the Fenwick Falcons 77-49 on Saturday night.
“The moment is always exciting to get them back-to-back like that to get to fans involved and to get the team involved,” said Shields, a senior forward. “When stuff like that happens, you just try to get it rolling from there.”
Middletown (7-4) has been rolling — to the tune of a six-game winning streak. The Middies have beaten the Falcons all six games played in the series.
Eddie Ferraro and Joey Costello drained a pair 3s to give Fenwick a 6-0 lead right out of the gate. But Middletown immediately called a timeout to adjust.
Shields slammed home his two dunks, which was part of an 18-point run for Middletown, and the Middies led 30-12 after the first quarter.
Middletown used a 30-3 run in the first half to help the hosts build a 49-20 lead heading into the halftime break. Michael Maldonado scored a game-high 13 points for the Middies.
“We’ve got to continue to be us,” Maldonado said. “We’re not going to let nobody dictate what we do on the court. We’re going to stay locked in and handle our business.”
Fenwick (1-7) has lost seven straight since opening the season with a win at Waynesville. Ferraro led the Falcons with nine points, and Costello had seven. Steven Rude chipped in with six points and brought down a game-high nine rebounds off the bench.
“It’s hard for us in practice to simulate that kind of pressure and athleticism,” Fenwick second-year coach Andy McCarthy said. “We still have hopes of making a tournament run, and if you make tournament runs, you eventually run into somebody who can run and pressure you like that.
“It’s a good kind of mental checkup for our guys to see that kind of athleticism to play against an athletic team like Middletown. I thought we came out in the third quarter and did a decent job of moving the basketball.”
Keith Daniels (11 points) and Kenny Greene (10 points) added some depth off the bench for the Middies, who had 40 points in the paint and created 22 turnovers.
Middies shift the momentum
All it took was a trip to Florida for Middletown to get going.
Following a Greater Miami Conference victory over Colerain, the Middies reeled off three straight wins to capture a championship down south in the KSA Holiday Basketball tournament in Orlando on Christmas break.
“We were in a little funk,” said Middletown second-year coach Bill Edwards Jr., whose squad started the season 1-4. “The majority of our team is two-sport athletes, so they were coming off football, and some guys were still not in basketball shape quite yet. It was also the gelling part. We came into the season feeling like we knew we were veteran-heavy. We thought we could just pick up and it automatically gel together, and we would just go. And it wasn’t that. It was a little bit of a curve.
“Our guys took care of it, and the Florida trip was great. They were enjoying each other’s company, and it was a great thing for this team to experience some of the things they did.”
Shields said he’s noticed an immediate impact since the southern trip.
“We took the focus down south,” Shields said. “The focus was on us. We didn’t worry about the other teams. There was no scouting report. It was us just running. We run, and do what we do. After that, we just figured it all out.
“We had a ton of fun experiences down there — a lot of stuff that made us come closer together.”
‘We’ve got confidence in our guys’
McCarthy’s program isn’t off the best of starts, but he said has a ton of belief.
“We’ve got confidence in our guys,” the coach said. “We’ve struggled a little, but I think from the jump, I did us no favors with the schedule. I take some ownership of that.”
The Falcons have losses to Goshen (the Southern Buckeye Athletic and Academic Conference American Division leader), Hughes (on a six-game winning streak) and Franklin (on a seven-game winning streak and leads the Southwestern Buckeye League Southwestern Division).
“So, maybe it’s a little bit unfair on my part after losing six of our top guys from last year,” McCarthy said. “But at the same time, we’re now deep enough into the season.
“I think it’s hard to tell if our half-court defense got better tonight,” McCarthy added. “We did turn the ball over a little bit more than we had hoped, but I think there have been small improvement as we’ve gone.
“We’ve still got a ton of confidence in our leading scorers and in our big-minute guys. We’ve still got a bunch of little things that need fixing. We talk as a staff. There isn’t something that is structural. We have kids who practice hard, but when you take a step up to play good teams, a bunch of small mistakes pile up into big differences.
“Hopefully tonight is another learning experience for everyone — staff included, myself included — about how important those little things are as we go forward.”
