BUCYRUS — Slow starts have been the rule rather than the exception for Bucyrus basketball this season.
It happened again Saturday night.
Carey ran out to a 15-2 first quarter lead, then held the Redmen at arm’s length the rest of the night for a 58-46 Northern 10 Athletic Conference win at Alex Kish Memorial Gymnasium.
“Not getting off to a good start hurt us, obviously,” Bucyrus coach Barry Egan said. “If we just made a few shots to start, that would have helped us a good deal. We’re always fighting uphill and we’re at a point in the season where we should be getting off to a better start.”
The Redmen were an ice-cold one for nine from the field in the first eight minutes. On the other end, the Blue Devils hit four of their first five shots and six of 12 for the period to grab the 13-point lead.
“That first quarter, defensively, we were really focused,” Carey coach Jamie Young said. “We really wanted to cut down on their drives. They’ve got good athletes and a lot of their offense goes through dribble penetration. We have good athletes too and we were able to stifle them a little bit.”
Bucyrus (3-13, 1-10 N10) finally got the offense jump started in the second quarter. The Redmen connected on eight of 15 shots good for 19 points. Noah Burke came off the bench to score five to lead the charge.
However, the Blue Devils answered with 20 points of their own — 12 on four 3-point shots, three by Brayden Young — for a virtual wash. Carey held a 35-21 lead at intermission.
“I don’t fault our kids’ effort,” Egan said. “We got good shots in the first quarter. We actually outshot them in the first half. We didn’t shoot very many bad shots. We just didn’t make shots.”
“We were able to hit some shots early and get some turnovers and convert them to layups,” Young said. “That was big for us. It kind of worried me there is the second quarter. I think they scored 19 points. A lot of them came from post-ups. We were giving up too easy position and they were capitalizing on that.”
A 10-4 start for the Blue Devils in the third quarter expanded their advantage to 45-25, which was the spread by quarter’s end, at 54-34.
The Redmen chipped away in the fourth quarter, but never got closer than the final score.
“We get stuck in quicksand and it’s and uphill battle from there,” Egan said.
Brayden Young led all scorers with 14 points — all in the first half — for Carey. Anthony Bell had 11 points and Bryce Conti added 10. Landon Kemerley and Jordan Vallejo had six rebounds each.
“The first quarter was good and everything after that was flashes of good and flashes of bad,” Young said. “In the fourth quarter, we only scored four points. We’ve got to fix that. It didn’t seem like we were focused in the fourth quarter.”
Malachi Bayless topped Bucyrus with nine points and Burke contributed eight. But nine different Redmen scored. Grady Jackson had seven rebounds.
“I thought our bench play was very good,” Egan said. “They came in and gave us a lot of energy. I thought Dylan (Lanker) came in and threw his body around. Eddie (Dagher) was certainly a lot of energy. Kolton (Middleton) came in and hit a big 3 for us. I thought Noah gave us a lot of spark, too. If we can keep getting that out of our bench and if we can get our starters to give a little bit more at the start of the game, we’ll be OK.”
“All in all, Bucyrus played hard,” Young said. “They always do. They could have folded their tent when we made that run at the beginning of the third quarter, but they didn’t. Hats off to them.”
“We’ve still got a lot of games to play in a little bit of time. We can step it up and play each game as hard as we possibly can, because if we don’t, we’re just cheating ourselves,” Egan said. “It’s frustrating. But I think the kids will stay with it and we’re going to stay with it. Hopefully, some good things are going to come for us here in the latter part of the year.”
Carey also won the junior varsity game, 45-28. Carter Smiley had 13 points for the Blue Devils. Chris Neale led Bucyrus with seven.
Box score
Carey 15 20 19 4 — 58
Bucyrus 2 19 13 12 — 46
Carey (9-7, 6-4 N10): Shots 24-48; 3-pt. shots 6-16 (Brayden Young 4, Derek Lonsway, Anthony Bell); Free throws 4-8; Rebounds 28 (Landon Kemerley 6, Jordan Vallejo 6); Turnovers 14. Scoring: Derek Lonsway 2 1 6, Bryce Conti 5 0 10, Anthony Bell 5 0 11, Ashton Hall 1 0 2, Landon Kemerley 3 3 9, Brayden Young 5 0 14, Jordan Vallejo 3 0 6.
Bucyrus (3-13, 1-10 N10): Shots 20-43; 3-pt. shots 2-8 (Mike Wise, Kolton Middleton); Free throws 4-8; Rebounds 21 (Grady Jackson 7); Turnovers 13. Scoring: Eddie Dagher 3 0 6, Joe Rager 2 0 4, Mike Wise 1 1 4, Grady Jackson 4 0 8, Jake Hamm 1 0 2, Kolton Middleton 1 0 3, Malachi Bayless 4 1 9, Noah Burke 3 2 8, Dylan Lanker 1 0 2.
JV: Carey 45-28.