Staff photo / Brian Yauger LaBrae’s Angelo Melidona drives to the basket past Girard senior Allen Hess-Cardona during a game Friday in Leavittsburg. Melidona finished with 27 points.

LEAVITTSBURG — While one is manning a new bench, LaBrae coach Chad Kiser and Girard coach Nick Canterino are quite familiar with each other.

The two battled as coaches over the last few seasons when Canterino was at Campbell. Competing for league and district titles is a quick way to brew a rivalry, and their respective programs did just that.

Tuesday’s game didn’t have the stakes, but it had the intensity as each team was eager to prove themselves.

LaBrae won the day though, in a 71-70 win for the Vikings.

It wasn’t a perfect game from LaBrae, but it’s a lot better to learn after a win.

“It’s nice to still learn from the mistakes we made down the stretch and still get a ‘W,'” Kiser said. “We’ve got some really smart kids and some leaders that made some uncharacteristic mistakes down the stretch. I think that was fatigue, but I’m confident we’ll learn from those and not make those mistakes again. I’m very pleased with our effort and moving the ball against their pressure.

“We had some stretches where we played really good basketball. We really spread them out, handled the pressure and made them pay for trapping and our bigs did a nice job inside finishing. I’m pleased overall and confident we can learn from the mistakes.”

Senior Austin Rowe scored his 1,000th career point in the second quarter. Girard didn’t make things easy on Rowe in the slightest, but still finished with 17 points.

Rowe has shouldered more responsibility this season after losing Derek Wilson to graduation, but it hasn’t slowed him down.

“He’s just a prolific scorer and really does a great job handling the ball,” Kiser said. “He’s doing a lot more this year. We put a lot on his shoulders, and he showed up tonight and handled the ball, ran the point, and it’s tough. People don’t realize with them doubling and trapping and doing all that, how much strain that is on you throughout the game, and he didn’t get one break tonight. I’m proud of his effort, and that’s what he does all the time. He’s earned every bit of that with all of his hard work and time he spent in the gym.”

With Rowe doubled for most of the game, it opened things up for the rest of the Vikings. Lucas Glaser scored 11 points and Angelo Melidona scored a game-high 27.

Braxton Sloan led Girard with 20 points, 18 of which came in the fourth quarter.

With LaBrae’s lead reaching double-figures late in the game, the Indians pushed back. But with their last basket coming in the final seconds and no timeouts remaining, their comeback effort was stopped just short of forcing overtime.

“We were dealing with some foul trouble all night, kind of settled for a lot of threes. We actually hit some threes tonight,” Canterino said. “Just the fight (we showed.) That’s a really good team with a lot of experience. We could have easily put our heads down and quit once we got down 12, 13, but we showed some toughness, we showed some grit, and we started attacking. I think that was kind of what turned it around, we just came up a little bit short.”

Girard (1-1) opens its league schedule on the road against Niles.

LaBrae hosts Howland on Saturday. Howland plays a similar aggressive style to the Indians, so Kiser is eager to get his kids some experience facing another hard-nosed defense.