BUCYRUS — Balanced scoring and two 23-point quarters were more than enough for Bucyrus to defeat Crestline 73-63 in a cross-county non-league game Tuesday night.
The Redmen (4-12, 0-10 N10) again were led by junior Malachi Bayless with 25 points. But he got plenty of help.
Teammates Noah Burke and Randy Banks each scored 16 points, with Burke getting 6 rebounds and Banks 5 and 5 steals.
Bucyrus head coach Scott Gifford thinks the win comes at an opportune time.
“You got two programs in Crawford County fighting for those wins and tournament time is coming up. Those wins will move us up a little bit.”
Crestline (5-11, 3-5 MB) put four players in double figures, led by Isaiah Perry with 27 points, something that pleased Bulldogs head coach Tyler Sanders — to a point.
“It typically is for us. But that just speaks to how lousy our defense was tonight,” he said. “We’re normally giving up around 46 a game and to give up 70 is just absurd.
“It’s really frustrating. Us getting back in transition was really frustrating. You would expect with our team scoring like that the outcome would be much, much different,” Sanders said.
Bucyrus trailed 15-12 after one quarter as Logan Huber was red-hot, scoring 7 points. His play was limited with an upper body injury later in the half.
“When you look at Crestline’s film, they’ve been getting down in games and they always fight back,” Gifford said. “We knew what we were gonna face tonight. You know they’re not gonna give up and we aren’t going to give up either.”
Gifford said that where Perry was on the court was a key.
“That’s what we were focused on was him and try not to give up the 3-point shot. It hurt us in other areas. I was more happy the first half than the second half,” Gifford said.
The big difference was a 23-9 Redmen advantage in the second quarter. Five Redmen got in the scoring column, led by Bayless with 10 and Combs and Banks with 4 each. That put the hosts on top 35-24 at halftime.
Crestline also got 12 points from Huber, 11 from Trevor Shade and 10 from Jake Bruce, who also snagged 8 rebounds.
“Malachi is a good player, but I wouldn’t say I expected him to get his. We’ve stopped other players. We did a pretty good job on Braxton Baker at the beginning of the year. We held the Mason brothers (Seneca East’s Luke and Isaac) to a combined four at halftime,” Sanders said.
“He’s a great player. I’d love to coach him, but we’ve also played against a lot of good players, and we did a good job defensively on them. But tonight, we just no-showed defensively.”
Early turnovers also put Crestline in the hole.
“It was really bad. I think we were down 6-0 to start the game, and I looked up and we were up 11-8. We kind of got our groove going again, but we also got 63, which is our season high. Our guys were pretty relentless on the blocks in the second half which is what probably made that up.”
Bucyrus’ ability to get transition baskets was critical.
“We’ve worked on that in practice. Transition gets points for everybody. We try to get the ball moving around, get some confidence and not lean on Malachi so much,” Gifford said.
Burke’s play is an example of that.
“Noah hurt his wrist a few weeks ago and he’s finally recuperated from that. Noah is 6-foot-5 and he’s got a good game. I think he’s capable of 15 and 10 a night. He’s strong and our post play is getting better,” he said.
“You’ve got a heavyweight and a light heavyweight in there with Noah and Randy. Randy is so fast, and we try to get those guys to feed off each other. Randy’s a state high jumper, so good luck guarding that in the paint.”
The Bulldogs have four games left in the regular season.
“One is against Loudonville, who already beat us this season and the next three teams all have winning records. But we’re going in with optimism and every day we just try to get better.”
Sanders remains optimistic as the season winds down.
“I still don’t think we’re playing bad basketball. We’re seeing the ball go in more than we did at the beginning of the season. It’s about being at our best at the end of the season and, as you guys know, we seem to do pretty good in the first round of the tournament. So, we expect that this year … and hopefully more,” he said.
For Bucyrus, the workload only gets tougher.
“We got games Friday night (Upper Sandusky), Saturday night (Carey), and next Tuesday, Friday and Saturday night, plus tournament draw on Sunday,” Gifford said. “But this is fun for the kids. When you have to wait a week in between games, that’s tough. You run out of things to do in practice.”
“The kids see things are clicking. All the games we’ve got coming up, we were in in the first half, so we feel there’s some victories on the board we can get.”
Bucyrus won the junior varsity contest, 51-25. Damarius Munn-Page had 10 and Georgie Floyd 9. Justice Horn’s 14 was tops for Crestline.
Box score
Crestline 15 9 17 22 — 63
Bucyrus 12 23 15 23 — 73
Crestline: (5-11): Shots 23-47; 3-pt. shots 7-12 (Trevor Shade 3, Isaiah Perry 3, Logan Huber); Free throws 10-11; Rebounds 19; Turnovers 19. Scoring: Logan Huber 5 1 12, Trevor Shade 4 0 11, Isaiah Perry 9 6 27, Kieran Barnett 1 1 3, Jake Bruce 4 2 10.
Bucyrus (4-12): Shots 32-46; 3-pt. shots 2-5 (Malachi Bayless 2); Free throws 7-11; Rebounds 31 (Kam Lewis 5, Randy Banks 5); Turnovers 21. Scoring: Kam Lewis 2 0 4, Blayne Barto 2 0 4, Noah Burke 7 2 16, Kavan Combs 4 0 8, Malachi Bayless 10 3 25, Randy Banks 7 2 16.
JV: Bucyrus 51-25.