Staff photo / Greg Macafee Lowellville’s Vinny Ballone shoots a layup Tuesday night against Dalton during their district semifinal matchup at Struthers Fieldhouse.

STRUTHERS — Lowellville’s season ended at Struthers Fieldhouse a year ago, and the Rockets 2023 district title hopes came to a sudden halt at the same location Tuesday night.

After a back-and-forth first half, the Dalton Bulldogs pulled away from Lowellville and handed the Rockets just their third loss of the season in a 55-36 district semifinal decision.

“We’re obviously disappointed,” said Lowellville coach Matt Olson. “We wanted to win this game and move on. But, the ball just wasn’t falling in tonight. We shot a lot of threes. We thought our defensive game plan worked how we wanted. The shots just weren’t falling.”

Lowellville got off to a pretty good start as Mark Dubos and Ryan Hvisdak each drained one from downtown and the Rockets were leading 12-9 at the end of the first quarter.

Lowellville extended its lead in the second and found themselves in front 22-17 with three minutes remaining until halftime.

However, the Bulldogs (15-8) hit back-to-back shots from behind the arc and went ahead 23-22 at the break.

Dalton senior Quentin Lehman (10 points) began the third quarter by completing a strong, and-one in the paint. The Bulldogs were hustling and getting to more loose balls than the Rockets.

Vinny Ballone fed Anthony Lucente (team-high 18 points) on a fast break. Lucente made one of his three 3-pointers, but Dalton went up 35-29 heading to the fourth.

Then, the bottom fell out on the Rockets. Dalton outscored Lowellville 20-7 in the final quarter to break the game wide open. Senior Jack Steiner (game-high 20 points) made a deep 3-pointer, and the Bulldogs were on their way to the district championship game.

“All lot of credit to Lowellville,” said Dalton coach Justin Greenfelder. “They’re a great team. They play really hard. They’re physical. They ran a diamond-and-one on us in the first half which we hadn’t prepared for. They kind of got us out of our game in the first half.

“Our kids did a great job of adjusting in the second half. They were finding the open man and finding the open spot on the floor. We adjusted to their physicality and really played a good, smart, basketball game in the second half.

Lowellville had a special group of seniors that were all hugging one another after the game. It was a very emotional ending to years of playing basketball together.

“We’ve always been there together,” Lucente said. “We always have each other’s backs to the finish. Even outside of basketball, we’re there for each other. We had a great season, and we always tried our hardest.”