Willow helps Arlington overpower Bulldogs

ARLINGTON– The gameplan isn't hard to figure out for the Arlington Red Devils. As a first-time spectator, all it takes is watching the team jog out for warmups to figure out what brand of basketball you're about to see. If the mere sight of six-foot-10 senior Calvin Willow isn't enough, Arlington's first play is usually a dead giveaway. Nearly every offensive set involves Willow, whether he's looking to score or working as a jumbo-sized hub for the rest of coach Jason Vermillion's offense to work around. Willow's combination of size and fluidity makes him a nearly impossible matchup, something Ada found out rather quickly. The Red Devils defeated the Bulldogs 40-27 on Friday night in a home BVC matchup. It started out as a low-scoring affair, with neither team cracking double figures in the first quarter, as Arlington carried just a 7-5 advantage into the second quarter."Well, you can't guard him one-on-one when your tallest kid's 6-2," Ada coach Chris Sautter said. "You've gotta figure out who you wanna play off of, dig in the post, and we just ran a second guy at him, doubled, and tried to make him give it up. Then you really have to scramble out and contest shots on the perimeter, and then try to box out and get rebounds." The second quarter saw Arlington begin to take full advantage of its height mismatch, as Willow accounted for five of the team's first 10 points, and broke double-digits himself as the first half came to a close. At the break, Willow was singlehandedly ahead of the Bulldogs 11-9, and Arlington's point total read 19. "We had a lot of shots that looked good in the first half," Sautter said. "I felt like the kids executed the game plan pretty well, we got the shots that we worked on in practice. It's just different when there's 6-10 hanging around the rim a lot. The kids battled and never backed down. Last year, I thought we were intimidated by (Willow), this year I felt like we went right at him and weren't scared."The third quarter saw Ada start to claw back into things, as the Bulldogs outscored Arlington 9-8 in the third and found themselves down 27-18 headed into the fourth. As the game wore on, Ada cranked up the defensive intensity on Willow. This worked at first, but eventually got the Bulldogs in some foul trouble and led to easy points at the charity stripe for Willow. "We knew coming in that this was a good basketball team," Arlington coach Jason Vermillion said. "Chris and his staff do a good job, so we knew that we had to be ready for any kind of defensive plan they had. They made Calvin uncomfortable in there. He took some shots that were probably a little bit quicker than what we would like, and tried to fight through the second and third guy that was coming in at him instead of just offering it up and re-posting.""I thought the kids did a nice job of making him earn everything that he got," Sautter said."Calvin's faced it all year long," Vermillion added. "Bodies are touching him, and he's learning how to play through it all. Each team does some things differently, and that's great for us to learn and be able to coach."Willow finished with 23 points, going 11-of-16 from the line. Red Devils' senior Ayden Cavinee knocked down a pair of 3-pointers, finishing with eight points. Ada's Carson Conley paced his squad with 12 points, hitting two triples. Zack Zimmerman tacked on 11 points. "Our kids played hard, they competed, battled all the way start to finish," Sautter said. "I can't say enough about their effort."Arlington improved to 14-3 overall, and 6-1 in the BVC. The Red Devils will be hoping for a share of the BVC crown, just one game back of league-leading Van Buren. Arlington travels to Wooster today for a 1:30 p.m. meeting with the Triway Titans.The Bulldogs, now 11-6 and 4-4 in the BVC, host Pandora-Gilboa next Friday in a 7 p.m. BVC contest.ADAConley 4-2–12, Zimmerman 5-0–11, Oldfield 1-0–2, McKean 1-0–2. TOTALS: 11-2–27.ARLINGTONWillow 6-11–23, Cavinee 2-2–8, Heacock 2-0–5, Rausch 1-0–3, Metzger 0-1–1. TOTALS: 11-14–40.Ada 5 4 9 9–27Arlington 7 12 8 13–40THREE-POINT FIELD GOALS: Ada 3 (Conley 2); Arlington 4 (Cavinee 2).