BUCYRUS (Crawford County Now) — Winning is fun. Learning to win is difficult.

Bucyrus took a major step in learning how to win on Friday.

The Redmen used a 22-point first quarter and solid defense to stop Mohawk, 62-55, in a Northern 10 Athletic Conference game at Alex Kish Memorial Gymnasium on Phil A. Joseph Court.

The win ended a 17-game losing streak to a successful Warriors’ program dating back to December 2016.

“We’re still learning how to win,” Bucyrus coach Brian Hargis said. “We were 1-22 last year. We’re 2-1 right now. Everybody in the building is learning how to win.”

Mohawk (1-2, 0-2 N10) is in a bit of a rebuild after losing 10 seniors to graduation from last season. Coach Paul Dunn indicated it starts with the mental approach.

“We came out not ready to go,” Dunn said. “We came over acting like this was an AAU game on the bus. Bucyrus was ready to play and we weren’t.”

The Redmen were firing on all cylinders early on. Mohawk’s second and last lead of game came at 6-5 on a 3-point shot by Tristan Bright. Bucyrus (2-1, 1-1) then went on a 17-2 run to the end of the first quarter to lead 22-8.

Georgie Floyd led the charge, scoring 11 of his game-high 28 points in the frame, including three 3s. Floyd had been one of 25 from beyond the arc in his first two games.

“Georgie — I’m happy for him. He got 28 (points), made all his free throws (8),” Hargis said. “That’s tough to do when you’re shooting 4% (from 3). He went out there with confidence. That’s who Georgie is. I’ve never lost faith in him. Did I ride him a little bit this week? Maybe. But he makes us better. He’s the engine that makes us go on offense.”

Dunn felt his team didn’t grasp the significance of guarding Floyd despite his poor shooting percentage in the first two games.

“Floyd started off the year kind of struggling shooting,” Dunn said, “We knew he was going to make some, but we were so undisciplined. We lost him multiple times. Even after we talked about face guarding him, he still got open shots.”

To their credit, the young Warriors cut into their 14-point deficit in the second quarter, outscoring the hosts, 14-6, to head to intermission trailing 28-22.

“We knew if we could just hit a few outside shots they night vacate the zone and that happened,” Hargis said. “We still had a lull in the second quarter there, kind of adjusting. We did a small regroup at halftime and I’m super proud of that first four minutes of the third quarter.”

The Redmen went on a 13-6 run over that time to push the lead back to 41-28 on Floyd’s fourth 3 of the night. Mohawk managed to trim it back to 46-39 by period’s end, but Bucyrus had added one its halftime advantage.

“We started to do things we talked about doing — diagonal against the zone, attacking baseline, being aggressive,” Dunn said. “The sign of a team that doesn’t understand the maturity of that, as soon as we came out of a timeout, we stopped doing it. So, we went away from the success we had and started doing the things that got us in trouble in the first place.”

The Warriors hung around in the fourth quarter, getting as close as 46-43 on a basket by Levi Tiell at the 5:59 mark. But Mohawk could never tie or take the lead.

Dylan Coppler supported Floyd’s 28 points with 19 for the Redmen. Floyd also had seven rebounds.

“Coppler played his butt off on both ends of the floor,” Hargis said. “I think he might have got the first block of his career.”

Bright led the Warriors with 20 points, with four 3s, and Tiell added 16 points and eight boards.

“Everybody, especially the last 3-4 years, is looking at Mohawk. They’re trying to get revenge for the wins we’ve had,” Dunn said. “I think our kids think people are just going to lay down like before. Credit to Bucyrus. Thay played harder than us. They executed way more than we did and we turned the ball over way too much to be successful.”

Despite the numbers on the scoreboard, Hargis said his team’s defense was most impressive, even playing with a short bench.

“A lot of hustle plays, a lot of deflections,” Hargis said. “That was kind of the key, let the defense be the offense. That’s the motto of the year. And it doesn’t really change all the way down the schedule.”

It’s back to the drawing board for Mohawk.

“It’s on me as a coach. We’ve got to find guys that can learn what we need them to learn,” Dunn said. “If it’s not the varsity guys, we’re going to look at the jayvee guys. We’ve got some guys that are playing hard.”

“We still left a lot of meat on the bone,” Hargis said. “I’ll look back at it and say that’s a good thing I guess. We can always get better.”

Mohawk earned a split on the night with a 52-24 win in the junior varsity game. Cameron Oesch had a game-high 17 points for the Warriors and Kasey Coffman added 13.

Micah Spears led the Redmen with seven points, while Quin Ross and Kayden Baxter finished with five each.

Box score

Mohawk       8        14      17     16 — 55

Bucyrus      22          6      18     16 — 62

Stats

Mohawk (1-2, 0-2 N10): Shots 21-52; 3-pt. shots 6-19 (Tristan Bright 4, Cam Oesch, Levi Tiell); Free throws 7-9; Rebounds 34 (Levi Tiell 8); Turnovers 17. Scoring: Jack Sager 1 0 2, Cam Oesch 1 0 3, Tristan Bright 7 2 20, Zikki 3 0 6, Levi Tiell 6 3 16, Brady Hannam 1 0 2, Eli Chevalier 2 2 6.

Bucyrus (2-1, 1-1 N10): Shots 22-49; 3-pt. shots 5-10 (Georgie Floyd 4, Lincoln Blizzard); Free throws 13-17; Rebounds 26 (Georgie Floyd 7); Turnovers 12. Scoring: Charlie Randall 4 0 8, Lincoln Blizzard 1 0 3, Georgie Floyd 8 8 28, Dylan Coppler 7 5 19, Carson Witten 1 0 2, Quin Ross 1 0 2.

JV: Mohawk 52-24.