For the first time since the 1987-88 season, the Rockets boys basketball team have won the Portage Trail Conference league championship. This came after the Rockets beat Rootstown on senior night to clinch the league title. They then went on to finish off the season with a win over Waterloo with a score of 72-58 ending the season at 14-6 and 12-2 in the PTC.
“It feels great to win the PTC” said sophomore Mike Zitkewicz. “I’m glad we’ve done so good because no one believed in us and thought we could do it.”
The rockets started on their path to a PTC championship by first winning their first PTC game against Woodridge and then winning their next three PTC games until losing a disappointing game against Windham.
Despite losing their first PTC game they managed to come back and beat Windham in a road game by a score of 68-63.
When the Rockets lost their second PTC game the same thing happened, they lost against Rootstown in another disappointing game by a score of 70-68, which came down to the final seconds of the game.
The next time they played Rootstown was on February 8th, where they won convincingly by a score of 58-40 to clinch the PTC title.
The Rockets were proud of their ability to come back and win after a devastating loss.
“I think we played PTC teams well, simply because, when we lost we were able to come back and correct our mistakes,” said junior Mike Moore.
Throughout the whole season, the Rockets had put up good stats against their opponents scoring an average 72 points per game while also playing solid defense and only allowing 65 PPG. The rockets also kept their shooting percentage at 39% from the field and 28% from the three point line.
Leading the team in scoring and rebounds was junior Robert Wilson who scored and average of 25 PPG with 13 rebounds per game.
Wilson reached an incredible milestone during his junior year by scoring his 1,000th point at Ravenna high school.
The next game against Rootstown, he broke the schools all-time scoring record previously held by Tommy Stockard. As if this was not enough, Wilson was also named Co-Player-of-the-Year with Windham’s Phil Workman.
Receiving 2nd team honors were senior John Weingart who averaged 13 points, three rebounds and three assists, and junior Carrington Hanna who averaged 15 points and 8 rebounds. Juniors Rico Smith and Mike Moore received Honorable Mention.
While the Rockets won the PTC this year they were not fully satisfied with the season. They would have liked to win the Christmas tournament where they did not fare so well in.
“I wish I would have had the guys better prepared for the [Christmas] break,” said head coach Todd Muckleroy.
Next year Muckleroy said he hopes to repeat their success in the PTC and hopefully win a few more games. Moore has his own ideas for next season. “We need to find another John Weingart,” said Moore “he keeps everything light.”
Alex Westerh