It's been nearly a year since the Red Devils and Wildcats played for a championship in front of a packed Mantua gymnasium that sold out days in advance.

Crestwood beat Mogadore that day to earn a share of the PTC County title, less than 24 hours after Mogadore beat Lake Center Christian to clinch its own share of the County championship.

This year is a little different.

The two rivals — friendly rivals, Wildcats senior guard Austin Fisher insists — meet for the final time much earlier in the season, with the conference race far from being decided. And this year, the Red Devils are four-and-a-half games behind the Wildcats, not a single game back, like they were that late February afternoon.

Legends, leading actors from that afternoon, are gone. Like Crestwood’s all-time leading scorer, Jordan Fabry, who had 19 in the second half and 30 overall, including all eight of his team's third-quarter points. Same with the brilliant Mogadore center Jarad Dunn, who had 11 points and 14 rebounds in that epic final game.

But a rivalry carries on.

"What I like about the rivalry between us and Crestwood is it's not all anger," Fisher said. "It's a lot of friendly competition. We don't really hate each other. It's a friendly rivalry where we can both play our hardest. In the end, whether we win or lose, we still come out of that game with something we learned, something we got better at."

It would have been easy for the rivalry — and both programs — to dip a bit in 2017-2018. Both teams graduated most of their starters from last season. Both lost their leading scorers.

Somehow, the Wildcats are back to where they've long been, at the top of the County Division with a 6-0 mark.

"It is surprising when you enter the year with three returning lettermen and coming off three consecutive titles, two outright and one tie," Wildcats coach Russ Swartz said. "It is a little bit of a surprise. I'd like to think it’s because our program wins at each level. Kids experience success at an early age, junior high and all through the JV. I'd like to think that helps us when they get to the varsity level."

And that's the thing.

Wildcats sophomore guard Lukas Swartz, like his counterpart at Crestwood, Mason Jakacki, has had a stellar campaign and improved greatly from his freshman year to his sophomore season. Mogadore junior Connor Kerr, like Kyle Zigman for the Red Devils, has been solid down low for the Wildcats, with both expanding on already significant roles from last season.

But what's been most remarkable from the Wildcats (8-2, 6-0 PTC County) has been how quickly players who had never — or barely — played varsity adjusted to varsity basketball. Kyle Coffman has drained 3-pointers and drove to the hoop, after starring for Mogadore's junior varsity squad last season. Sophomore Dylan Jones has charged relentlessly to the hole.

"What's great about that is most of our guys are just super strong, super aggressive," said Fisher, a strong shooter himself and an even better defender. "We're a football school. Most of our basketball players are football players, not me, of course. Everyone else has been in the weight room, hitting people all the time. They're used to it. Since they're used to it, they can translate that to basketball."

Meanwhile, Fisher is famed for taking charges, but that's not all he does, according to Russ Swartz.

"You know what you'll get out of him," Swartz said. "I've coached a lot of years. I don't know that I've seen a guy that can change the momentum on the defensive end that wasn't a shot blocker, and he's done that. He's done that for two solid years for us, not just drawing charges but being in the right spot."

They've had to step up, with opposing defenses working to take Lukas Swartz out of the game. More and more, Fisher said, the Wildcats are seeing the box-and-one, a simple zone with a face-guard meant to frustrate one star player.

"I was told this year to be in more of a scoring role and I'm trying to be because we don't have a lot of scorers," Fisher said. "It definitely puts pressure on the rest of us to score more. What does happen when you see a box-and-one, it does get the rest of us more open. It does spread that floor more. We get easier looks."

Against the "box" part of the "box-and-one," or whatever defense opponents throw at Mogadore, the Wildcats have whipped the ball around the perimeter faster than ever. Sometimes, Swartz is a part of that. Other times, his defender successfully keeps him out. Either way, Mogadore whips the ball around, searching for an open shot.

"One thing Coach keeps telling us is he doesn't want us to hold the ball too much," Fisher said. "Two, three seconds tops, then get rid of it, get it to the next guy. If you don't have a shot, get it to the next guy."

The Red Devils (6-7, 2-5) have had a bit of a rockier road, starting with the preseason injury sustained by Isaiah Patton, counted on to be a key scorer to help replace Fabry.

But with Fabry, glue guy Colton Rahach, sharpshooter Hunter Osborne and powerful posts Aaron Cox and Logan Thut gone to graduation, and Patton down with an injury, Crestwood quickly adopted a no-excuse philosophy, per coach Josh Jakacki.

"You're going to have adversity, you're going to have hard times, you're going to come up against situations that are going to press you physically and mentally, and the last thing we want these guys to do in times of adversity or in trying times is to start making excuses," Jakacki said, "because when you make excuses, you start feeling better about yourself, but you're not growing, so for us as a team, we haven't made an excuse one time. We haven't talked about injury. We haven't talked about youth. We haven't talked about any of those things, because it doesn't exist."

The Crestwood coach said he never heard an excuse uttered — even as the Red Devils, after beginning 2-0, dropped five of seven, including an 0-4 start to County play. Instead, his team made the necessary adaptations, no one more so than Mason Jakacki.

Jakacki, a point guard, is a pass-first player. Asked whether he'd rather score 20 or get 10 points and 10 assists, the soft-spoken sophomore doesn't hesitate.

"10 and 10."

But his team has needed him to step up as a scorer this season. That was especially true as opposing defenses schemed to take his younger brother, Trent Jakacki, out of the equation, following the freshman's astonishing debut, including 22 in Crestwood's opening win over Cardinal and 17 in the Red Devils' County opener against the Garfield G-Men.

"With the dynamic of our team, (Mason) recognized that we needed someone to be somewhat of a consistent scorer for us," Jakacki said. "I know that guy happened to be Trent earlier in the year, but teams are doing a great job of adjusting to Trent, and Trent hasn't truly figured out his adjustments yet that he's going to have to make in order to get more shots and to get more comfortable in the offense and what not, seeing that he is getting doubled, so Mason took it upon himself and has done a nice job of getting into the lane."

That's shown in the numbers. Last year, Mason Jakacki finished his freshman campaign having hit 38 of 51 free throws. This year, 13 games in, he's 91 of 113, more than doubling his makes and attempts from last year.

Against Southeast, the sophomore lifted a struggling offense to its first conference win, and against Lake Center Christian, both Mason and Trent shined to bring Crestwood its most impressive win of the season. Entering the night with a 1-4 record in the County, the Red Devils knocked off one of the favorites to win the County Division.

"That was one of the funnest games I've ever played in, because we just did everything that we needed to do to win and everyone just did their part and we stuck to the game plan," Mason Jakacki said.

Growth has been widespread, the sophomore noted. Cole Fannin has come on strong, particularly as a rebounder. Zigman has had a great season. Andrew Gullett has played a key role as a needed additional guard.

But basketball is a humbling game — and with Zigman nursing an injury, Crestwood dropped two straight to teams with losing records in Streetsboro and Garfield.

Through all the ups and downs of a young team, Josh Jakacki said he has been calmer this season, even if Mason said he hasn't noticed a difference. (Josh noted that, like most coaches, he’s harder on his own kids.)

"We might not have the certain number of wins we had hoped for, but we knew coming in that any sort of opportunity we're going to have from an experience standpoint, a chance at growth for these young men, is more important than any type of win we're going to get," Jakacki said. "That's something that's changed in me over the course of time. It's just not as important, because there are so many other elements to coaching. We're supposed to be ambassadors for our sport and also ambassadors for our school. We show great moral compass in front of the kids. Hopefully, that's something that rubs off on them."