BUCYRUS — In basketball, defense can win championships, but free throws can win games.
Seneca East took the latter route Friday night, connecting on 23 of 29 free throw attempts, to defeat Bucyrus, 60-51, in a Northern 10 Athletic Conference game at Alex Kish Memorial Gymnasium.
“If you look at the totals of free throws versus them, that definitely helps when we get to the line and we were knocking them down,” Seneca East coach Michael Powers said. “And we held them off the line.”
By contrast, the Redmen were five of seven from the stripe — a net 16-point deficit in a nine-point game.
“We have a hard enough time playing the game, coaching the game,” Bucyrus coach Barry Egan said. “We don’t have time to officiate it. We just have to get better on the defensive end. If we want our kids to be aggressive, we know we are going to make some fouls.”
The teams were almost carbon copies of each other in the first quarter. Bucyrus (3-13, 2-11 N10) got out to the early lead and the Tigers scrambled back to take an 11-10 lead by period’s end. Each team tried 14 shots, the Redmen had a 10-9 rebound edge and had on less turnover, 4-3.
Seneca East (10-7, 6-6) used a 6-0 run to start the second period to open a 17-10 lead. But Bucyrus stormed back with an 11-1 run of its own to regain the lead, 21-18, on a basket by Joe Rager with 3:20 left in the half.
The Redmen increased their advantage to 25-20 before the Tigers scored the final four points of the quarter to trim their deficit to 25-24.
“Their game plan was great,” Powers said of the Redmen. “They got to that lead, so they started going to that four-corners look, spreading us out.”
The lead changed hands seven times and the score was tied once in the third quarter. Bucyrus’ last lead came, at 34-33, came on a 3-point shot by Eddie Dagher. It was one of three from long range for Dagher.
“Eddie’s been working hard at practice, especially with his defense,” Egan said. “We try to tell the kids the harder you work on defense it’s going to help your offensive end too. Eddie’s been working hard and it’s starting to show.”
“Dagher was huge for them tonight,” Powers said. “He comes in and hits three 3s, hits two in a row in the third quarter to get them back on a run.”
The Tigers were able to weather Dagher’s bombs to hold a 41-38 lead after three, in part because they committed only one turnover in the frame.
“The good thing for us in the third quarter, we got the lead, and they weren’t able to (slow it down) as much because they needed to get some shots up,” Powers said. “Obviously, taking care of the ball is going to be huge for any team. We came out of the locker room, we calmed down a little bit and got back to playing our game.”
After Seneca East stretched the lead to seven at 45-38 on a basket by Pieter Wise, Bucyrus was never closer that four, at 46-42, on a bucket by Karson Kimmel at the 5:12 mark. The Tigers’ biggest lead was 11.
“It really hurt us when we didn’t finish layups,” Egan said. “We had three or four in the first half. Of course, the five in the second half really did us in. But if we continue to get better, hopefully we’ll improve on that.”
Isaac Mason led Seneca East with a game-high 19 points — 14 from the free throw line and grabbed seven rebounds. Turner Bridgford had 14 points, while Zane Gibbs and Andrew Kalb had 11 each.
“The Kalb kid is one of the best players in the league,” Egan said. “And Mason — (Michael’s) got two really good players and his bigs are still big in the fourth quarter. They’re a pretty good team. They’ve player everyone well. We played a lot better this time than we did last time against them.”
Grady Jackson topped the Redmen with 12 points and nine rebounds. Nick Middleton finished with 10 and Dagher added nine. Bucyrus had a 36-30 edge on the glass.
“That was a survival game is what I’ll call it,” Powers said. “We got lucky.”
“We’ve got a big challenge (Saturday),” Egan said. “We’re challenging our kids to see if they can give us the same effort on back-to-back nights. So, we’ll see if we can take more steps forward.”
Box score
Seneca East 11 13 17 19 — 60
Bucyrus 10 15 13 13 — 51
Seneca East (10-7, 6-6 N10): Shots 16-43; 3-pt shots 5-16 (Turner Bridgford 2, Zane Gibbs, Isaac Mason, Andrew Kalb); Free throws 23-29; Rebounds 30 (Isaac Mason 7); Turnovers 15. Scoring: Zane Gibbs 3 4 11, Isaac Mason 2 14 19, Andrew Kalb 4 2 11, Brock Ferres 0 1 1, Turner Bridgford 5 2 14, Pieter Wise 2 0 4.
Bucyrus (3-13, 2-11 N10): Shots 20-56; 3-pt. shots 6-17; Free throws 5-7; Rebounds 36 (Grady Jackson 9); Turnovers 18. Scoring: Joe Rager 3 1 7, Karson Kimmel 1 1 3, Mike Wise 3 2 8, Grady Jackson 5 1 12, Jake Hamm 1 0 2, Nick Middleton 4 0 10, Eddie Dagher 3 0 9.