CAREY — Wynford coach Steve Mohr has been preaching for a long time, the Royals needed a second scorer to go with star Josh Crall.

Saturday night, the Royals got just that.

Crall was dominant again, scoring 33 points, but junior guard Gavin Burris came off the bench and added 16 points as the Royals downed Carey, 65-55.

Wynford improved to 10-3 in the Northern 10 Athletic Conference, 12-5 overall. Carey fell to 6-6 in the conference, 9-8 overall.
Crall has been dominant all season, leading the conference with a 25 point-per-game average. But that second scorer simply hasn’t been consistent.

Burris came through, scoring 14 of his 16 points in the second half.

“I thought we did decent on Josh, we made everything hard for him,” Carey coach Jamie Young said. “He had one breakaway layup. Josh is the best scorer in the league. We were able to be a little more physical with him than usual, but he hit big shots.

“Then Burris came in and hit 16 points and I think that was the big difference,” Young added. “Josh is going to get his. But Burris coming in to get 16, that’s big for them.”

Mohr felt that he got contributions from his entire roster.

“Gavin Burris was great off of the bench, Isaac Sterrett was great defensively and Josh Crall was Josh Crall,” Mohr said. “His performance speaks for itself. I thought he made a lot of good passes; he threw the ball ahead. It was just a huge win for us.”
Carey star Hayden Stone was huge for the Blue Devils, scoring 12 of his 28 points in the first period, as the Blue Devils grabbed a 20-13 lead early and held a 20-15 lead after one period.

Stone added 10 more points in the fourth period, but Mohr thought his team did a great job on the 6-foot-8 post, who will play his college ball at Findlay.

“I hate to say we did a good job on Stone, he scored 28 points, but a lot of his points he got on the offensive glass in the second half,” Mohr said. “He didn’t get a lot off the initial entry pass, so I thought Gavin Leffler, Gunnar Coffman, Dustin Brady and Jaron Filliater, the four of those did a good job defensively keeping the ball out of his hands on the initial post entry.”

Young felt that his team wasn’t as patient as they could be.

“They were doubling (Stone) but that was before the pass,” Young said. “We weren’t patient enough. We were more apt to just shoot a three. We needed to be more patient and swing the ball a few times at least. We didn’t shoot well. I think we were only four-of-23 from the three-point line. That really did us in.

“It was our shooters taking the shots, so I won’t say they were bad shots,” Young added. “This was our third game in four days and we’re almost to the end of our NBA schedule. Maybe it’s fatigue, maybe it’s not. But Wynford played hard. We got up on them early and they battled back. They played like a 12-win team.”

The Royals got the lead for good late in the third period after Carey’s Hayden Nash his a 3, giving the Blue Devils a 39-36 lead.
From there, Crall scored on a follow and Burris added two straight baskets, and the Royals grabbed a 42-39 lead entering the final frame.

“Gavin can get to the rim and Gavin can finish,” Mohr said of his guard. “We need that. We’ve been saying for a year-and-a-half we need that double-figure scorer, whether he starts or comes off the bench, it doesn’t matter.”
Wynford led by as many as 12 late in the game as Carey was fouling to get the ball back.
Mohr said this was a critical win for his basketball team.

“This gave us a winning season, the first one in about four years,” Mohr said. “Also, this win was crucial for the tournament seed, and that is coming up. This is a quality basketball team and I really felt that we needed to get this one tonight.

“We have an opportunity to finish this season with as many wins as we’ve had here in a long time. This is a good game against a team that I have a great amount of respect for. I was just really happy with the way our kids played tonight.”

Box score

Wynford   15   14   13   23 — 65

Carey         20    6   13   16 — 55

Wynford (12-5, 10-3 N10): Shots 24-47; 3-pt shots 6 (Josh Crall 4, Matt McBride, Jaron Filliater); Free throws 11-19; Rebounds 28; Turnovers 13. Scoring: Matt McBride 2 0 5, Dustin Brady 1 0 2, Josh Crall 11 7 33, Gavin Burris 6 4 16, Jaron Filliater 1 0 3, Gavin Leffler 3 0 6.
Carey (9-8, 6-6 N10): Shots 23-59; 3-pt. shots 3 (Isaac Hoepf 3, Hayden Nash); Free throws 5-6; Rebounds 24; Turnovers 14. Scoring: Hayden Nash 1 0 3, Bryce Conti 2 0 4, Hayden Stone 12 4 28, Isaac Hoepf 4 0 11, Cade Crawford 2 0 4, Ian Yeater 2 1 5.
JV: Carey 54-24.