The Washington Blue Lions hosted the Miami Trace Panthers for a triple header of basketball action Saturday, Jan. 30.
Miami Trace won the freshman game and Washington won the junior-varsity game.
In the varsity game, Miami Trace pulled away in the third quarter and went on to post a 53-35 victory.
The Panthers had three players in double figures, led by the game’s leading scorer, senior Cameron Moore, with 16 points.
Senior Bo Little scored 14 points, led the game in steals with four and grabbed five rebounds.
Senior Logan Rodgers scored 11 points and added nine rebounds.
Washington sophomore Tanner Lemaster scored 15 points and had a double-double with 12 rebounds, including a game-high seven from the offensive glass.
Sophomore Raleigh Haithcock scored six points (two threes), senior Micai Claggett and freshman John Wall each scored five points for the Blue Lions.
The Blue Lions had a very good start, taking a 7-0 lead.
By the end of the first quarter, Washington was in front, 11-9.
The Panthers went on a 9-0 run to go in front, 18-11.
A three-point field goal by Raliegh Haithcock tied the game, 19-19 with 53 seconds to play in the first half.
When Lemaster scored early in the third quarter, it proved to be the final lead of the game for the Blue Lions, 21-19.
Miami Trace went on an 8-0 run to go back in front, 27-21.
From that point, the Panthers outscored the Blue Lions, 13-5 to take a 40-26 lead going into the final eight minutes of play.
The Panthers twice led by as many as 23 points in the third quarter before the final bucket of the game from Wall set the ending tally at 53-35.
The pressure defense by the Panthers led to 17 steals by Miami Trace.
“We were able to generate some stuff out of our pressure a little more consistently tonight than maybe we have throughout the bulk of the year, which was good to see,” Miami Trace head coach Rob Pittser said. “We have depth. We have a lot of a similar type of kid. Actually, it can make it difficult from night to night to know which buttons to push.
“It’s fortunate that we can (play) like we did tonight, 11 kids in the first half,” Pittser said. “That was part of our strategy. We wanted to extend them a little bit with that depth and see where that would lead us in the second half.”
Washington’s zone defense was helping keep the game close in the first half.
“The biggest frustration we had at halftime was our execution against the zone,” Pittser said. “We’ve not seen a ton of zone here recently. Any time you have two re-boots with a month off due to quarantine, it’s tough to be consistent with your execution. We have several zone wrinkles that we’ve used throughout the course of the season and in seasons past and we were just not executing them.
“We thought we could have had a multi-possession lead at halftime if we had just executed better,” Pittser said. “We spent the bulk of our halftime just hammering out zone execution, because we knew we were going to see a good bit of it in the third quarter.”
The Panthers still have room to grow and improve, Pittser said.
“Sometimes at this point in the year, late January, you kind of are what you are,” Pittser said. “With a couple of the stoppages that we’ve had, on and off with the quarantine situation, we’re still growing a little bit. Our kids are still coming to practice with the idea that we’re not a finished product yet.”
“I feel like it’s Groundhog’s Day here where you wake up and it’s the same story,” Washington head coach Shannon Bartruff said. “We just turned the ball over too much. We were too loose with it. We knew they were going to pressure us. Even sometimes when we broke the pressure, we didn’t make good decisions.
“We talked before the game that we had to move the basketball and make them guard,” Bartruff said. “We didn’t do that. We tried to play a lot of one-on-one. I’ll have to look at the stats, but, I don’t think they killed us on the glass, but, a lot of their rebounds were timely.
“(Scoring) 16 points in a half of basketball, you’re not going to be very competitive,” Bartruff said. “I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that we were trying to do too much as individuals and we’re turning the ball over too much.
“When we did (break the press) there were times when we just missed lay-ups,” Bartruff said. “Even (in the first half) we were taking a lot of hurried shots, which is what they wanted us to do. Even if they don’t turn you over, they want you to take quick shots so they can keep the pace up.
“It was a very physical game,” Bartruff said. “There are not too many teams that we really match up great with for a physical game. We’ve got to get better. Our guards have to start taking care of the ball. We’re not going to score 70 points a night. We need the scores to be in the 40s and if they’re not, it’s going to be tough for us to win.”
Washington (1-10 overall, 1-6 in the FAC) will host Chillicothe Tuesday with the freshman game starting at 4:45 p.m.
Miami Trace (4-8 overall, 2-5 in the FAC) will host Hillsboro Tuesday with the freshman game beginning at 4:45 p.m.
SCORE BY QUARTERS
MT 9 10 21 13 — 53
W 11 8 7 9 — 35
MIAMI TRACE — Cameron Moore 3 (2)-4-16; Bo Little 3 (2)-2-14; Logan Rodgers 2-7-11; Ethan Steele 1-2-4; Isaiah Reisinger 0 (1)-0-3; Andrew Guthrie 1-0-2; Braden Osborne 0-2-2; Hayden Hunter 0-1-1; Dylan Bernard 0-0-0; Cyrus Keplinger 0-0-0; Keegan Terry 0-0-0; Braeden Morris 0-0-0. TOTALS — 10 (5)-18-53. Free throw shooting: 18 of 22 for 81 percent. Three-point field goals: Moore, 2; Little, 2; Reisinger. Field goal shooting: 15 of 54 for 27 percent. Three-point field goal shooting: 5 of 20 for 25 percent. Rebounds: 33 (15 offensive). Assists: 8. Steals: 17. Blocked shots: 0. Turnovers: 15. Personal fouls: 13. Bench points: 44. Second chance points: 24. Points off turnovers: 13.
WASHINGTON — Tanner Lemaster 4 (1)-4-15; Raleigh Haithcock 0 (2)-0-6; Micai Claggett 1 (1)-0-5; John Wall 1 (1)-0-5; Brice Cartwright 0 (1)-0-3; Traeton Johnson 0-1-1; Titus Lotz 0-0-0; Karson Runk 0-0-0; Isaiah Haithcock 0-0-0. TOTALS — 6 (6)-5-35. Free throw shooting: 5 of 8 for 62 percent. Three-point field goals: R. Haithcock, 2; Lemaster, Claggett, Wall, Cartwright. Field goal shooting: 12 of 42 for 28 percent. Three-point field goal shooting: 6 of 24 for 25 percent. Rebounds: 24 (10 offensive). Assists: 4. Steals: 3. Blocked shots: 3. Turnovers: 22. Personal fouls: 14. Bench points: 6. Second chance points: 8. Points off turnovers: 8.
Stats by Cory Patton
Blue Lions win j-v game with Panthers
In the junior-varsity game, Washington defeated Miami Trace, 46-27.
John Wall was the game’s leading scorer for the Blue Lions with 16 points. He hit four of Washington’s nine three-point field goals.
Noah Hicks scored 13 points, including connecting for three threes.
A.J. Dallmayer scored six points, Kyland Howland, Isaiah Haithcock and Troy Thompson each scored three points (with three-point baskets by Howland and Haithcock) and Coleden May scored two.
Wes May led the Panthers with eight points, including two threes.
Garrett Guess scored six points (including one three), Eli Fliehman scored four points, Cole Little hit one three for three points and Tate Landrum, Shay Salyers and Austin Boedecker each scored two points.
The Blue Lions led 12-4 at the end of the first quarter.
The Panthers fought back, tying the game, 16-16 at the half.
Washington pulled ahead with 16 points in the third quarter to three for the Panthers.
The Blue Lions scored 14 points in the fourth quarter to eight for Miami Trace for the 46-27 final.
Miami Trace wins freshman game over Blue Lions
In Saturday night’s freshman game, it was Miami Trace over Washington, 43-29.
For the Panthers, Brady Armstrong was the game’s leading scorer with 14 points.
Eli Fliehman scored 11, Garrett Guess hit two threes for six points, Bryson Osborne had five points, Pierce McCarty scored four points and Austin Boedecker scored three.
Coleden May led the Blue Lions with 11 points, including one three-point field goal.
Garrett Rickman scored eight points, Logan Presley had six points (with one three) and Bryce Yeazel and Nathan Upthegrove each scored two points.
The Panthers led 6-5 at the end of the first quarter.
It was 21-13 Miami Trace at halftime.
The Panthers held a 30-20 lead after three quarters and outscored the Blue Lions 13-9 in the fourth quarter.
