HOLMES TOWNSHIP — It took longer than Coach Steve Mohr had anticipated but the wait is over.
His Wynford Royals said goodbye to 2020 and are hoping to turn the page with the Royals’ first win of the year, 52-41, over backyard rival Bucyrus in a Northern 10 Athletic Conference game Monday night.
“It was a step forward in a lot of ways,” Mohr said. “We’ve still got things to work on. We’ve recognized for a while the ball’s got to go down inside, that was our game plan.”
It was a plan that was executed to near perfection. Jaron Filliater, at 6-foot-4, and 6-4 Dustin Brady dominated the glass, combining for 22 (of 37) rebounds, the same amount as the entire Bucyrus (2-8, 1-6 N10) team.
Filliater had a double-double with a career high 23 points and 14 rebounds. Brady had 12 points and eight boards.
“I don’t think he was going to get tired of making layups,” Bucyrus coach Barry Egan said. “We’ve got to push back, gotta check and push back, play aggressive. Until we learn to do that, it’s going to be an Achilles’ heel for us because we’re not very big.”
The Redmen grabbed the early lead and had a 12-7 advantage on a basket by Joe Rager with 3:08 left in the first period.
But Wynford (1-7, 1-5) scored the last five points of the period to tie it at 12-12 after one.
“I thought we missed a lot of easy opportunities early and this game should have been a double-digit game early,” Mohr said. “But we continue to miss easy shots.”
The second quarter was back-and-forth with the Redmen holding their last lead of the night on a 3-point shot by Karson Kimmel at 4:10. It was tied twice after that before the Royals eased out to a 28-25 lead at halftime.
In the third quarter, Bucyrus hit just four of 12 shots and only got to the free throw line once. Wynford took advantage to push the lead to 44-34 by period’s end and the Redmen were forced to play catchup the rest of the night.
“We had a number of times we made one pass and a shot and that played right into their hands,” Egan said. “Those are great when they go in. But if they’re not (going in), we have no chance to offensive rebound the ball. We have to do a better job of running offense, getting the ball where we know we can shoot the ball.”
After hitting a high percentage of shots — 12 of 25 — in the first half, Bucyrus was just six of 25 in the second half. The Royals, on the other hand, went 10 of 19 from the floor and got to the line 12 times to only three for the Redmen.
“I thought with our two bigs in Dustin and Jaron, we could get scoring down in (the paint),” Mohr said. “For the most part, they recognized that. When Bucyrus made their run is when we quit reversing the ball and getting it to them. We tried to make it happen on the first pass.”
The game was closer that the final score might indicate. Bucyrus scored the first five points of the fourth quarter on a 3 by Nick Middleton and two free throws from Jake Hamm.
But Filliater took over from there, scoring all eight of the Royals’ points in the frame and the Wynford defense held the Redmen to just two more points after the fast start.
“We got great shots. We’ve got to make some shots,” Egan said. “We had a lot of shots in the key that didn’t go in. Those, if we make it, allows us to get into a little bit of pressure and allows us to get into more of an up-tempo game, which kind of suits us. But we’ve got to make some shots in order to get into the press.”
Lucas Hackworth hit a pair of 3s for eight points to supplement Filliater’s 23 and Brady’s 12 for Wynford.
“(Jaron) missed some early shots,” Mohr said. “But in the second half, when we needed him to convert, he converted. It was a really good performance. He rebounded well, plus he came up with sone big plays defensively, so it was a good all-round game for Jaron.”
Middleton topped Bucyrus with 14 points and Hamm added eight. Mike Wise had five rebounds.
“The only thing I know about shooting is you miss 100 percent of the ones you don’t take,” Egan said. “I want our kids to be comfortable taking a shot because I know they can make those shots. We’re certainly not taking that over into our game situation.”
“We got stops (in the second half),” Mohr said. “I’m really disappointed we’re not getting out on our break better. But we got stops. The bottom line is we converted and earlier we weren’t converting.”
“Hey, we’re getting a lot of shots in the key and we’re not making them,” Egan said. “I think that had everything to do with the game right there.”
Wynford also won the junior varsity game, 48-43. Grant McGuire had a game-high 15 points to lead the Royals and Cainen Allen finished with 13. Malachi Bayless led Bucyrus with 10 points and Dylan Lanker added nine.
Box score
Bucyrus 12 13 9 7 — 41
Wynford 12 16 16 8 — 52
Bucyrus (2-8, 1-6 N10): Shots 18-50; 3-pt. shots 2-12 (Karson Kimmel, Nick Middleton); Free throws 3-3; Rebounds 22 (Mike Wise 6); Turnovers 12. Scoring: Joe Rager 1 0 2, Karson Kimmel 1 0 3, Mike Wise 3 0 6, Grady Jackson 3 0 6, Jake Hamm 3 2 8, Nick Middleton 6 1 14, Malachi Bayless 1 0 2.
Wynford (1-7, 1-5 N10): Shots 21-45; 3-pt shots 2-7 (Lucas Hackworth 2); Free throws 8-12; Rebounds 37 (Jaron Filliater 14); Turnovers 14. Scoring: Dustin Brady 6 0 12, Lucas Hackworth 3 0 8, James Schiefer 1 0 2, Gavin Burris 2 1 5, Jaron Filliater 8 7 23, Toby Butterfield 1 0 2.
JV: Wynford 48-43.