BUCYRUS — Bucyrus continues the learning curve common to young teams.
A veteran Ridgedale squad was able to take advantage of it.
The Rockets overcame an early Redmen lead and eventually pulled away to a 48-36 victory in the Northern 10 Athletic Conference opener for both teams.
“I can’t say enough about my senior leadership — Clayton Lust and Sam Leach,” Ridgedale coach Mike Mathey said. “They’re great kids, excellent players. They just work hard, do what’s asked of them and they’re leaders too.”
Lust led Ridgedale (2-0, 1-0 N10) with 16 points and Leach added 13. Junior Michael Burns finished with 13 as the Big 3 scored 42 of the Rockets’ 48 points.
“Sam hit a couple of big shots for them and it was really tough to climb out of that,” Bucyrus coach Barry Egan said. “We went from being down nine at half and we cut it to six, then came down and didn’t execute.”
The Redmen once again struggled with shooting, hitting just seven of their 21 shots in the first half. Ridgedale used that to build it’s 26-17 halftime lead.
“We had pretty good ball pressure and they didn’t get many open looks,” Mathey said. “We were contesting shots pretty much all night.”
Bucyrus (0-3, 0-1) started fast, going out to a 10-6 lead midway through the first period. However, the Rockets went on an 11-3 run to the end of the quarter to grab a 17-13 lead after one.
“We didn’t turn them over enough and our rotation wasn’t that good,” Egan said. “We had to sit Mike (Wise) with two fouls (in the first quarter). I thought we had good momentum and good tempo in the first half and we just couldn’t get it back after that.”
The Redmen managed to get within six, at 33-27, on the strength of three-point shots on back-to-back possessions by Wise and Joe Rager. But again, the Rockets scored the last four points of the period to get the lead back to 37-27 with eight minutes left.
“(Their offense) is all predicated on driving to the middle and kicking it out,” Mathey said. “They didn’t have that many straight-line drives to the basket.”
The Ridgedale lead eventually reached 17, at 48-31, on a basket by Burns with three minutes left. Bucyrus’ Gabe Higginbotham registered the last five points of the game to set the final score.
“As long as we can shoot the ball in ball reversal, I’m all right with it,” Egan said. “We have kids who just haven’t had the experience shooting the ball (at the varsity level). The object of the game is still scoring.”
Egan at times had two freshmen and three sophomores on the floor but doesn’t use that as an excuse.
“Basketball is still basketball,” Egan said. “You still get two for it to go in the goal, sometimes three if you’re lucky. We have to do a better job of that, and I have to do a better job of getting them into scoring position.”
Burns had 11 rebounds to top Ridgedale, while Leach had seven. Burns, Leach and Lust were the scoring leaders.
“Clayton, Sam and Michael had big games and they had to step up,” Mathey said. “We were down one of our players who got hurt in pregame.”
Higginbotham led Bucyrus with 12 points and nine rebounds. Wise finished with eight points.
“We sometimes forget to jump to the ball,” Egan said. “I think with a little bit more time and effort, the more we work on it, the better we’re going to get.”
“This was our first road test,” Mathey said. “I knew the crowd would be in it for Bucyrus. I thought we took the crowd out of it early and did what we had to do.”
“Everything is certainly correctible,” Egan said. “The guys just have to continuing being coachable and we’ll go from there.”
Bucyrus gained a split on the day by winning the junior varsity game, 33-23. Braxton Lewis led the Redmen with eight points.
Braxton Fosnaugh had six points for Ridgedale.
Box score
Riverdale 17 9 11 11 — 48
Bucyrus 13 4 10 9 — 36
Ridgedale (2-0, 1-0 N10): Shots 19-43; 3-pt. shots 3-9 (Sam Leach 2, Clayton Lust); Free throws 7-12; Rebounds 32 (Michael Burns 11); Turnovers 11. Scoring: Clayton Lust 6 3 16, Sam Leach 4 3 13, Kaden Lester 2 0 4, Michael Burns 6 1 13, Adam Beard 1 0 2.
Bucyrus (0-3, 0-1 N10): Shots 15-41; 3-pt. shots 4-17; Free throws 2-5; Rebounds 22 (Gabe Higginbotham 9); Turnovers 14. Scoring: Joe Rager 2 0 5, Mike Wise 3 1 8, Grady Jackson 1 0 2, Nick Middleton 2 0 5, Spencer Huff 1 0 2, Skylar Lucio 1 0 2, Gabe Higginbotham 5 1 12.
JV: Bucyrus 33-23.