WILLARD — They may not be holdovers from legendary coach Bob Haas’ glory days, but the Willard Flashes are working on it.
Willard scored 45 first-half points and the defense limited Bucyrus to 15 points in the second half as the Flashes downed the Redmen, 80-36, in a non-league game at Robert Haas Gymnasium.
“They do a lot of things well,” Bucyrus coach Justin Mattix said of the Flashes. “They can pressure the ballhandler, they exploit a lot of weaknesses. We had a lot of turnovers, a lot of forced shots.”
The Redmen hit three of their first four shots and held the lead briefly at 7-6 on a 3-point shot by Harley Robinson-Koge and were still trailed just 12-11 with just over three minutes left in the opening quarter.
But Willard (1-1) scored 14 of the last 16 points of the frame to lead 26-13 after one.
“They did a nice job,” Willard coach Joe Bedingfield said of the Redmen. “Their guards penetrate hard. Our size and length bothered their guards a little bit. The Hamm kid did a nice job of getting some blocks and making some shots (in the post). One thing about it, we have to use our length to our advantage and tonight, we did that.”
Kyle Hamm scored six of his team-high 12 points in the first period and Robinson-Koge had seven of his nine.
“In the first quarter, we got a good roll from Kyle and a good roll from Harley,” Mattix said. “Kyle was a beast on the boards. He did a really good job of rebounding. If he plays like that, we’ll be able to compete with a lot of teams in our league.”
The Flashes used a 19-8 advantage in the second quarter to expand the lead to 45-21 by halftime. Cooper Parrott registered 17 of his game-high 23 points in the first two periods to lead Willard.
“In that first quarter, we missed some presses, some zone stuff,” Bedingfield said. “We just really tried to sit down and become a better half-court defensive team that good basketball teams can do.”
A 35-15 differential in the second half set the final score.
Four Flashes finished in double figures. Davon Triplett dropped in 18 to second Parrott’s 23. Myles Pinkston scored 17 and Terry Baldridge added 10. Willard also held a 43-28 edge on the glass, with Pinkston grabbing 13 boards and Triplett had 10.
Besides Hamm’s 12 points and Robinson-Koge’s nine, Bucyrus (0-2) got six points off the bench from Zane Seybert. Hamm pulled down nine rebounds.
“We started falling into the trap because we fell in love with the (perimeter) shot early,” Mattix said. “Then we got mesmerized by their length and it caused a lot of problems for us. We wouldn’t jump stop and we wouldn’t shot fake. We finally did it in the third quarter, but by then it was a 20-, 30-point game. We’ve got to learn to make those adjustments earlier.”
“When you get off to a good start shooting, the rim seems to get a little bigger,” Bedingfield said. “We did shoot it a little better, we shared it a little better. I thought we made the extra pass tonight more than we had before. These guys are getting to know their roles.”
A Bucyrus rally fell short in the junior varsity game, allowing Willard to come away with a 43-38 victory.
Mike Wise led the Redmen with 12 points and Gabe Higginbotham added 10. Trey Mock had 13 for the Flashes.
Box score
Bucyrus 13 8 14 1 — 36
Willard 26 19 26 9 — 80
Bucyrus: (0-2): Shots 15-42; 3-pt. shots 1-12 (Harley Robinson-Koge); Free throws 5-9; Rebounds 28 (Kyle Hamm 9); Turnovers 25. Scoring: Zane Seybert 2 2 6, Jaylen Zehner 1 1 3, Kenton Lutz 0 0 0, Lucas Kozinski 0 2 2, Harley Robinson-Koge 4 0 9, Dylan Goff 2 0 4, Kyle Hamm 6 0 12.
Willard: (1-1): Shots 32-68; 3-pt. shots 4-20 (Cooper Parrott 4); Free throws 12-23; Rebounds 43 (Myles Pinkston 13, Davon Triplett 10); Turnovers 5. Scoring: Brevon Polachek 1 3 5, Terry Baldridge 5 0 10, Myles Pinkston 8 1 17, Trey Paxton 1 0 2, Davon Triplett 7 4 18, Micah Dawson 2 1 5, Cooper Parrott 8 3 23.
JV: Willard 43-38.