The Washington Blue Lions hosted the Miami Trace Panthers for Senior Night Saturday, Feb. 8.
In front of a very large crowd, the Panthers defeated the Blue Lions, 57-26.
Miami Trace had three players in double figures, led by seniors Trevor Barker with 14 points and Kyler Conn with 11 points.
Freshman Andrew Guthrie scored 10 points and junior Cameron Moore scored nine.
Moore led the Panthers with three three-point field goals, Barker had two.
Junior Logan Rodgers led the game with nine rebounds. Conn led the game with five assists and four steals.
For the Blue Lions, freshman Tanner Lemaster led with 11 points. He also led his team with eight rebounds.
Junior Mitch Lotz had five rebounds and senior Drew Moats had two assists.
The Panthers began the game taking an 8-2 lead.
The Blue Lions pulled to within one point, 8-7.
At the end of the first quarter, Miami Trace was in front, 18-12.
With baskets from Lemaster and Moats, Washington was within two points, 18-16 with just under five minutes remaining in the first half.
At the half, the Panthers were in front, 27-16.
Miami Trace went on a 12-3 run to begin the second half.
The Panthers held a 20-point lead with 2:37 to play in the third period.
Miami Trace took a 42-25 lead into the fourth quarter.
The Panthers outscored the Blue Lions 15-1 in the final eight minutes of play.
Assistant coach Dustin Pfeifer coached the Blue Lions Saturday as head coach Ryan Day was unable to be there due to illness.
“Our thoughts and prayers are with Coach Day,” Pfeifer said. “We tried to FaceTime him as a team, but, he didn’t get to answer his phone.
“We worked on a couple of their plays and things like that,” Pfeifer said. “They’re just a big club. They’re so well-coached. Coach Pittser has figured out that press. Our big thing when we played them last time was not to turn the ball over on the press.
“I think their future is going to be really bright,” Pfeifer said. “Coach (Rob) Pittser does a great job, their coaching staff does a great job. They kind of just ad-lib and they go with it and they do a great job.
“We have a lot of little battles within our team,” Pfeifer said. “Taking care of this, taking care of that. We don’t want to give up this. So, we stuck to our game plan and I’m really proud of our guys.”
“We went to our bench a little more frequently again tonight, like we did (Friday against McClain),” Pittser said. “A bunch of kids got a chance to contribute. Playing back-to-back, we wanted to make sure we went a little deeper on our bench.
“We thought our guards, defensively as a group, were really, really huge tonight,” Pittser said. “(Washington was) doing a lot of perimeter screen action that we typically don’t see and (our guards) handled that really well.
“Our big guys were solid around the bucket,” Pittser said. “Rebounding wise-they got the job done.
“I thought the Court House kids played really well,” Pittser said. “From them to be playing that hard and that passionately this late in the season, really speaks to coach Day and coach Pfeifer and the kids that they have. This was a pretty competitive basketball game for two-and-a-half quarters.”
Miami Trace (12-8 overall, 6-3 in the FAC) is at Chillicothe Tuesday and at Peebles Friday. Freshman games begin at 4:45 p.m. on those nights.
In the Division II Sectional tournament, Miami Trace is seeded No. 10. The Panthers will take on the No. 7 seed Logan Elm Wednesday, Feb. 19 at 8 p.m. at Southeastern High School.
The Blue Lions (0-20 overall, 0-10 FAC) completes the regular season at home against Unioto Tuesday and at Wilmington Thursday. Both j-v games will be two quarters in length and start at 6 p.m. with the varsity games at 7 p.m.
In the tournament, the Blue Lions (No. 18 seed) will play McClain (No. 15 seed, 6-13) Monday, Feb. 17 at 8 p.m. at Southeastern High School.
The winner of that game will play the No. 2 seed Jackson (18-2) on Wednesday, Feb. 19 at 6:15 p.m. at Southeastern High School.
SCORE BY QUARTERS
MT 18 9 15 15 — 57
W 12 4 9 1 — 26
MIAMI TRACE — Trevor Barker 4 (2)-0-14; Kyler Conn 4 (1)-0-11; Andrew Guthrie 4-2-10; Cameron Moore 0 (3)-0-9; Ethan Steele 1 (1)-0-5; Logan Rodgers 1-2-4; Hayden Hunter 1-0-2; Keegan Terry 1-0-2; Dylan Bernard 0-0-0; Cyrus Keplinger 0-0-0; Bo Little 0-0-0; Isaiah Reisinger 0-0-0. TOTALS — 16 (7)-4-57. Free throw shooting: 4 of 5 for 80 percent. Three-point field goals: Moore, 3; Barker, 2; Conn, Steele. Field goal shooting: 23 of 50 for 46 percent. Three-point field goal shooting: 7 of 20 for 35 percent. Rebounds: 26 (7 offensive). Assists: 12. Steals: 13. Blocks: 2. Turnovers: 13. Personal fouls: 9. Bench points: 14. Second chance points: 6. Points off turnovers: 22.
WASHINGTON — Tanner Lemaster 0 (3)-2-11; Karson Runk 1-2-4; Drew Moats 2-0-4; Mitch Lotz 0 (1)-0-3; Calum Brown 1-1-3; Noah Hicks 0-1-1; Trevin Brown 0-0-0; Brice Cartwright 0-0-0; Clayton Howland 0-0-0. TOTALS — 4 (4)-6-26. Free throw shooting: 6 of 7 for 85 percent. Three-point field goals: Lemaster, 3; Lotz. Field goal shooting: 8 of 32 for 25 percent. Three-point field goal shooting: 4 of 12 for 33 percent. Rebounds: 21 (2 offensive). Assists: 5. Steals: 4. Blocks: 1. Turnovers: 26. Personal fouls: 7. Bench points: 4. Second chance points: 0. Points off turnovers: 2.
Blue Lions win abbreviated j-v game with Panthers
In the junior-varsity game Saturday night, Washington edged Miami Trace, 18-17.
Noah Hicks led the Blue Lions with seven points, including one three-point field goal.
Rishaun Burns scored six points and Clayton Howland scored five.
For the Panthers, Isaiah Reisinger was the game’s top scorer with nine points.
Bo Little scored five, including one three-point basket and Cyrus Keplinger hit one three-point shot for three points.
SCORE BY QUARTERS
W 7 11 — 18
MT 8 9 — 17
