Lowellville Lady Rockets Poised To Make Run Toward State

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The thing that is most different about the 2011-12 Lowellville Girls basketball squad is that they will make a tournament run while having everyone healthy.  The Rockets, ignored by the polls until recent weeks, are playing with a sense of confidence not often found at the high school level.  Tony Matisi is the driving force behind a program that has defied the “small school” image.  Matisi has built a program that keeps winning and deserves credit for his accomplishments.

Those accomplishments are plentiful.  Matisi has gold stars on his resume through a 14-year tenure that has seen his teams record 20 wins in seven of their last eight seasons.  He has recently retired as a Youngstown State maintenance employee, but says that he plans on doing this basketball gig a few more years.  Who wouldn’t?  This is a program that has succeeded for so long that girls coming up through the system wait for their chance to be a part of something positive and contagious.

Everyone knows about the firepower that this team possesses. Taylor Hvisdak, Emily Carlson, and Ashley Moore are all new members into the 1,000 point club, and all three Lady Rockets achieved the fete this season.  Rachel Durbin, Kaye Solak, and Madison Opritza have all played a role in this magical season too.

“From a coaching standpoint, when we look at a team we will be playing, we see one really good player and four role players”, said Matisi.  “When teams look at us, we have three thousand-point scorers on the floor at the same time, and the other two can score too.”

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The one thing, besides injuries, that has hampered the Rockets on recent playoff runs has been decisive height disadvantages.  Matisi commented on how this team will handle a size mismatch problem this season.

“The size mismatches were a fear until we played a very good Canfield team.  We were afraid of their big girl dominating the middle.  The job that Rachel [Durbin] did and the defense we used against that sort of player worked well.  The confidence we took away from that game cannot be measured and will help us as we get deeper in the playoffs.”

In that Canfield game, the Rockets had a lead as big as 24, in the third quarter.  They eventually won by much less, but Matisi took his foot off of the gas and Canfield’s Coach Pavlansky used some pressure to force uptempo while the Rockets milked the clock.

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To call a coach a ‘Class Act’ is one of the highest compliments you could pay them.  Matisi defines what a class act is.  Countless times all season with the game usually decided at halftime, the Rocket coach has emptied the bench for at least the fourth quarter, not only to avoid injury and to get the younger players some quality minutes, but because he isn’t out to make any team look bad.

Matisi talked about how last year’s run was cut short by injury.  “Last year at the district semis, Taylor went down and wasn’t coming back.  We were scrambling around trying to fix something right at that moment, and that is hard to do.  It effects the girls on the floor more than it does the coaches on the bench.  I just want the chance to go as deep into this thing as we can while healthy.  If we get beat, so be it, as long as we lose with everyone able to play.”

It is a hard level of success to continually attain, but Matisi has done it.  In fact, he has probably done it better since 2000 than any other coach in the Mahoning Valley.  He loves the fact that the younger girls will watch the upperclassmen on the floor and wait their turn.  It is a natural feeder system that he refines every year.  It’s nice to have talent, but it is nicer when good talent gets superb coaching.

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