Staff photo / Brian Yauger Newton Falls boys basketball coach Roy Sembach, kneeling far right, and his team celebrate his 500th career victory after they defeated Crestview on Wednesday.

Following Newton Falls’ 61-50 victory over Crestview on Wednesday, the floor flooded. Not just students storming the floor in celebration of a huge league victory, but former Tigers coaches and players. All for one reason.

To celebrate their coach.

Newton Falls graduate Roy Sembach took over as the boys basketball coach at the beginning of the 1987 season and after 36 years at the helm, Sembach picked up his 500th victory with the Tigers.

At half court following the game, Sembach gave a brief speech in which he reminded the packed Lordstown gym that he didn’t do it alone.

“I want to thank everyone that showed up tonight,” he said. “Friends of our program, families, former coaches and our former players. Our student body did a great, great job tonight. I can’t thank you enough. I think we have something special here that hardly any programs have because of the continuity of our program. We have a true Tiger basketball family.

“We have former players here who played for coach (Gene) Zorn or who coached with coach Zorn and it’s special. I really really love it and I can’t thank you enough, from the bottom of my heart. I hope we can keep this going a little while longer.”

He went on to claim to just be a small part of the team’s success over the years.

To Sembach, the most meaningful thing about the win was being in the driver’s seat in the league.

“Yes, we’re celebrating 500 wins for our program, but I haven’t scored a point since 1980,” Sembach said. “The players have done it all.”

While the Newton Falls program under Sembach has been one of the top programs in Trumbull County, it took a little while for win No. 1.

The Tigers’ first (and only) victory in Sembach’s debut season coaching came in January of 1988. Newton Falls beat out East Palestine, 55-52, in overtime.

Those losing seasons didn’t last long though. After a 1-20 record in his first season and a 3-19 record in year two, the Tigers finished 13-10 his third year at the helm. Those sub-.500 seasons have been a rarity ever since.

Since 1990, Sembach’s teams have only finished with a record below .500 four times, most recently in 2005-06.

Winning basketball games has become the tradition at Newton Falls. With five seasons with 20 or more wins, six league titles, six district titles and a regional finals appearance, victories have become the lifeblood of the program.

To describe the Newton Falls program in a word, it would be “continuity.”

Over the last 68 years, since 1955, the Tigers have only had two coaches leading the program. Zorn, Sembach’s predecessor and the man who is the namesake of the gym at the high school, asked him to coach while Sembach was in college and hasn’t looked back since.

“Well, I have the job I always wanted,” Sembach said. “I played at Newton Falls, Coach Zorn asked me to coach my second year in college. This is where I want to be. I love the game of basketball. I love coaching basketball, but the place where I want to coach basketball is Newton Falls. There’s no better place as far as I’m concerned.”

His favorite wins? That’s an easy question. The most recent one and the next one.

“It’s always the most current one,” Sembach said. “And now very soon, we’re going to start thinking about the next one. Many great victories with many great teams over the years, it’d be really tough to single any one out.”

The Tigers look for win No. 501 tonight against Garfield.