HOLMES TOWNSHIP — Records were made to be broken and streaks come to an end.
One iconic streak was finally halted at Dr. Michael A. Johnson Gymnasium Friday night.
Bucyrus broke a losing skein at Wynford that dated back to January 1967 by coming from behind to defeat the Royals, 67-62, in a Northern 10 Athletic Conference game.
“I don’t know anything about history,” a jubilant Bucyrus coach Barry Egan said. “I know that we lost Malachi (Bayless) early and certainly Jake (Hamm) for an extended period of time. He went and got stitched up, came back, and played well.
“We were a little short-handed, but our guys — Dylan Lanker and Eddie Dagher and Kolton Middleton — stepped up to really help us out.”
Bayless and Hamm collided, and Bayless had blood gushing from his mouth as he retreated down court. The game had to be paused to clean the floor and Bayless left the game for medical attention.
But Wynford coach Mike Smith thought the injury to Bayless may have hurt his team as much as it did Bucyrus.
“You never want to see a kid get hurt,” Smith said. “But in reality, that was a bad thing to happen for (Bayless), but it slowed our momentum. It just shut it down.”
Wynford (0-3, 0-2 N10) had indeed seized the early momentum, hitting eight of their first nine shots from the field to build a 17-6 lead midway through the opening quarter. Six different Royals scored in the run.
Following the cleanup delay, Grant McGuire drained a 3-point shot to give Wynford it’s biggest lead of the night, 20-6, but from there, the Redmen started to creep back into the game.
“I thought we were getting up and down the floor, our offense was clicking,” Smith said. “I thought the momentum was totally on our side. Then that happened and that delay just kind of sucked the life out of us. We just couldn’t recover.”
Bucyrus (2-2, 1-2 N10) went on an 8-3 run to the end of the first quarter to trim the deficit to 23-14 after one.
The second quarter was pivotal as the Redmen put up 22 points to come all the way back to tie the game at 36-36 by intermission. Joe Rager and Mike Wise each had eight points in the frame to lead the charge. Rager had a career-high 25 points and Wise finished with 19.
“We just had to got back, try to relax a little bit stay in a stance, and try not to gamble too much, and just stay in our roles,” Egan said. “We did a lot better job of that. We’ve still got to clean up some things. We don’t do anything very pretty.”
Jaron Filliater scored five of his team-high 20 points in the third quarter as the Royals reclaimed the lead and had a four-point advantage twice — at 44-40 and 48-44 — the second at the 2:22 mark on a basket by McGuire.
“We got up four or six and then we missed an easy shot here or there that would’ve extended the lead,” Smith said. “They went to their T game, which is kind of spread the floor out. We worked on it all week. We were going to try to trap, and they got around us a few times and got some easy baskets. Give them the credit. They did what they had to do to win.”
“Eddie Dagher did a good job on Filliater (defensively),” Egan said. “You can’t stop him; he’s going to get his points. Eddie negated him as best he could.”
Bucyrus got it back to within 49-48 by period’s end and then took control of the game in the fourth quarter. The score was tied twice early in the frame, but the Redmen took the lead for good at 54-52 on a basket by Wise with 5:32 left.
Bucyrus led by as many as seven at 60-53. Wynford cut it to three twice but could never regain the lead. The Redmen hit 11 of 19 free throws in the final period to hold off the Royals.
Rager and Wise buoyed the offense with their 25 and 19, respectively. Jackson had eight points and seven rebounds and Dagher grabbed seven boards. Bucyrus was a red hot 24 of 42 from the field.
“When you take good shots and everybody touches the ball, it’s amazing how well you score the ball,” Egan said. “If you shoot good, you look good. We were able to share the ball, get a lot of touches and I think that helped us out a great deal.”
Cainen Allen and McGuire had 10 points each for Wynford to second Fillister’s 20. Nine different Royals scored. Filliater had eight rebounds. Wynford shot a very good 24 of 48 from the field.
“That was our best shooting game of the year,” Smith said. “We spent the last 14 days doing a lot of shooting. At least that paid off. We just had points where we didn’t execute down at the end. They did.”
“Just being ready to play and being more focused and it being a rivalry game I think really helped us out,” Egan said. “I think their kids played well.”
“They’re a little bit older team than we are,” Smith said. “We’ve got a lot of young guys playing. It’s a learning experience. You move on. I told them, ‘I know you’re upset right now, but you’ve got to get over it tonight because we’ve got to come back and go to Mohawk (Saturday).’”
“I think it’s a credit to our four seniors,” Egan said. “It’s a direct result of their work. They’ve worked awfully hard for the last three years. And we’ve been pretty much maligned because we’re just trying to get better. Hopefully, this is a springboard for us that we can carry over.”
Wynford won the junior varsity game, 68-38. Weston Prenger had a game-high 16 points for the Royals. Spencer Miller had 14 and Micah Greene added 10. Blayne Stewart-Barto had 10 points for Bucyrus.
Box score
Bucyrus 14 22 12 19 — 67
Wynford 23 13 13 13 — 62
Bucyrus (2-2, 1-2 N10): Shots 24-42; 3-pt. shots 2-7 (Mike Wise, Kolton Middleton); Free throws 17-31; Rebounds 31 (Grady Jackson 7, Eddie Dagher 7); Turnovers 13. Scoring: Eddie Dagher 1 1 3, Joe Rager 9 7 25, Mike Wise 8 2 19, Grady Jackson 3 2 8, Jake Hamm 1 2 4, Kolton Middleton 1 3 6, Malachi Bayless 1 0 2.
Wynford (0-3, 0-2 N10): Shots 24-48; 3-pt. shots 5-17 (Jaron Filliater 2, Kohan Keith, Avery Langenderfer, Grant McGuire); Free throws 9-15; Rebounds 24 (Jaron Filliater 8); Turnovers 14. Scoring: Cainen Allen 4 2 10, Spencer Miller 1 0 2, Kohan Keith 1 0 3, Grant McGuire 4 1 10, Dylon Robinson 0 1 1, Avery Langenderfer 2 0 5, James Schiefer 2 1 5, Sam McMillan 3 0 6, Jaron Filliater 7 4 20.
JV: Wynford 68-38.