NEW WASHINGTON — When a team is struggling, the opponent always seems to be at the top of its game.
Wynford got Buckeye Central’s best shot early and the winless Royals spent the rest of the game playing catchup.
The Bucks hit five 3-point shots in the first quarter to build an 18-9 lead and cruised to a 60-45 Northern 10 Athletic Conference victory Thursday night.
“They hit shots early against our zone,” Wynford coach Steve Mohr said. “I’ll reserve judgment on that until I see the video, but I look at last week, the way we defended the 3-point line, we did a great job. Tonight, we didn’t.”
Tyler Rose and Alex Kanney each hit a pair of 3s, and Aiden McDougal had one for Buckeye Central (5-5, 3-3 N10) which gave the hosts the early nine-point lead. But the coach was still nervous.
“With high school kids — we make five 3s in the first quarter — I’m sitting there thinking, ‘We’re going to fall in love with it and we sorta did,’” first-year Buckeye Central coach Tom Howell said. “We shot some in the second quarter that we probably shouldn’t have, and we didn’t get enough shots in the paint. But we still have a lead at halftime. We worked our way through it.”
After falling behind by as many as 17 with less than two minutes left in the half but battled back to trail just 28-16 at intermission despite hitting just five of 23 shots in the first two periods.
“We didn’t get a shot to fall and I just thought we played very hesitantly in the first quarter,” Mohr said. “I thought all our kids apart from Toby Butterfield played hesitantly.”
In the third quarter, the Royals continued to chip away and got as close as eight points, 30-22, on a basket by Dustin Brady. But the Bucks went on a 17-4 run to the end of the quarter to lead. 47-26, by period’s end.
“The third quarter, I thought we struggled a little bit early,” Howell said. “But we got some easy shots on our fast break. We got some layups. We got a couple and-ones. Then we hit a couple of 3s and that’s what I’m looking for.”
“Right now, we’re just a mess offensively,” Mohr said. “We can’t get shots to fall. I guess the thing that was disappointing to me — we cut it to eight and then we proceed to give up dribble penetration, just simple right-hand drives.”
Buckeye Central’s biggest lead was 24 points, at 50-26 on a three-point play by Brady Kerschner with 6:02 left. Wynford managed to get the deficit down to 15 but it was not enough.
Howell still had some critiques for his team despite the win. He listed low turnovers (seven) and good defense as positives but getting badly outrebounded (43-25) as a negative.
“Another thing, tonight was free throws,” Howell said. “We finally got to the line. That’s what we’ve been preaching the last couple of weeks. It helps making your free throws.”
Rose led the Bucks with a game-high 18 points. Kanney added 17 points and Damian Dean had five rebounds.
Butterfield finished with 16 points for the Royals — including four 3s —while Brady had 11 points and 14 rebounds.
“I thought against Mohawk last week, even though we got beat, we took a step forward,” Mohr said. “We obviously took a step back tonight.
“You’ve got to give Buckeye Central credit,” he added. “Coach Howell had done an outstanding job here. His kids are playing a discipline and confidence and aggressiveness that, to me, is really impressive.”
“We were driving to the basket on the strong side and when they started rotating, sometimes you lose some people and we were able to find our guys for some easy shots,” Howell said. “I’m just glad to see we’re starting to do that stuff on a consistent basis. It makes it a lot easier.”
As to the Royals’ upcoming battle with backyard rival Bucyrus on Monday, Mohr was indifferent.
“It doesn’t matter who we’re playing. We’re not playing well enough to beat anybody right now,” Mohr said. “We’re 0-7 and we deserve to be 0-7. We just have to plug away and work at it to make things better.”
Buckeye Central also won the junior varsity game, 45-39. Stephen Sostakowski led the Bucks with 13 point, while Elliot Geissman and Drew Rose added nine each.
Cainen Allen had 15 points for Wynford and Grant McGuire finished with seven.
Box score
Wynford 9 7 10 19 — 45
Buckeye Central 18 10 19 13 — 60
Stats
Wynford (0-7, 0-5 N10): Shots 15-50; 3-pt shots 5-15 (Toby Butterfield 4, Dustin Brady); Free throws 10-16; Rebounds 43 (Dustin Brady 14); Turnovers 13. Scoring: Dustin Brady 3 4 11, Lucas Hackworth 2 1 5, Gavin Burris 3 2 8, Jaron Filliater 2 1 5, Toby Butterfield 5 2 16.
Buckeye Central (5-5, 3-3 N10): Shots 16-45; 3-pt. shots 9-20 (Alex Kanney 5, Tyler Rose 3, Aiden McDougal); Free throws 19-23; Rebounds 25 (Brady Kerschner 5, Damian Dean 5); Turnovers 7. Scoring: Drew Rose 0 1 1, Casey Geissman 0 2 2, Aiden McDougal 1 2 5, Tyler Rose 5 5 18, Alex Kanney 5 2 17, Tyler Sanderson 3 1 7, Brady Kerschner 1 2 4, Damian Dean 1 4 6.
JV: Buckeye Central 45-39.