BUCYRUS — Slow starts on offense have plagued Bucyrus all season.
It was more of the same Wednesday night.
The Redmen hit just two of 11 shots in the first quarter which allowed Crestline to build a 17-5 lead. The Bulldogs cruised from there to a 67-46 victory in a non-league game at Alex Kish Memorial Gymnasium.
“A slow start didn’t help us at all,” Bucyrus coach Barry Egan said. “That and the fact that we didn’t guard real well.”
Crestline (11-9) took advantage, hitting six of 12 shots from the field and four of five free throws to hold a 12-point lead by the end of the first period.
“It was probably from two. I don’t think our 3-point shooting was great,” Crestline coach Tyler Sanders said. “I haven’t seen the stats, but it felt like it at least. It’s good that we’re hitting shots late in the season. I think we’re starting to play some of our best basketball going into the end of the season, which is what you want to do.”
The Bulldogs kept up the hot shooting throughout, hitting 28 of 57 for the game. To Sanders’ point, Crestline was only three of 12 from 3-point range, but more than made up with it from two.
Brock Noblit let the scoring charge for the Bulldogs early on. Noblit scored 15 of his game-high 25 points in the first half as Crestline expanded its lead to 32-18 by intermission.
“(Noblit) is strong with the ball,” Egan said. “We didn’t do a good job (defensively) on him and he capitalized.”
“He has that ability,” Sanders said of his senior leader. “This is his first year in my system. Last year, he was here but dealt with injury. So, he’s still trying to figure it out. We’re still trying to help him know when it’s good to score and when it’s good to kick it.”
After connecting on just six of 22 shots in the first half, the Redmen offense did come to life to start the second half. Bucyrus (4-17) scored the first nine points of the third quarter to cut the deficit to 32-23. Joe Rager had five points in the run.
“We made a run and cut it to nine at one point,” Egan said. “I thought Joe came out with a lot of energy in the second half and had us going. We need to feed on that, we need to capitalize on that. Other guys need to play with that type of energy as well.”
“It’s a little frustrating only because we talked about that at halftime,” Sanders said of the Bucyrus run. “My first year here, I think we were up 22 at halftime and we won in overtime. I really wanted our kids to concentrate on coming out in the second half handling pressure. That’s the only thing I could find wrong.”
The Bulldogs broke the skein on a basket by Ethan Clark which started a 12-5 run to period’s end to give Crestline a 44-29 edge after three.
The Redmen got a boost from Malachi Bayless in the fourth quarter. The freshman scored 11 of his team-high 17 points in the frame. But the Bulldogs registered 23 points in the frame to win going away.
Clark seconded Noblit’s 25 with 18 points for Crestline. Conner Lusk had 12 rebounds.
Nick Middleton scored 10 points in support of Bayless’ 17 for Bucyrus. Mike Wise grabbed nine boards for the Redmen.
“Our last three games, we’ve been getting beat by not getting off to a good start,” Egan said. “Against Crawford, against Upper, we had good opportunities. Tonight, we kind of shot our own self in the foot. Our guys were pressing a little bit. They’ve got to realize that, when we get down, we’ve got to make it up on the defensive end.”
“Going into the tournament, Brock continues to open things up for everybody else,” Sanders said. “Calvin (Reed) does such an amazing job distributing the ball as a point guard and Ethan does a good job distributing the ball as a post player. The seniors are really good at finding the right guys to score. As long as we continue to do that, I think we are going to be dangerous.”
“Give them credit,” Egan said. “They outhustled us for loose balls, they were able to get all kinds of offensive rebounds (13) and that was the story of the game.”
Crestline came from behind to win the junior varsity game, 43-31. R.J. Johnston led the Bulldogs with 10 points and Logan Huber added nine.
Kolton Middleton topped the Redmen with 10 points and Blayne Stewart-Barto finished with eight.
Box score
Crestline 17 15 12 23 — 67
Bucyrus 5 9 17 15 — 46
Crestline (11-9): Shots 28-57; 3-pt. shots 3-12 (Brock Noblit 2, Josh Hall); Free throws 8-13; Rebounds 41 (Conner Lusk 12); Turnovers 16. Scoring: Brock Noblit 10 3 25, Josh Hall 2 2 7, Conner Lusk 2 0 4, Alijah Evans 1 1 3, Calvin Reed 0 2 2, Lucas Cochran 4 0 8, Ethan Clark 9 0 18.
Bucyrus (4-17): Shots 20-54; 3-pt. shots 4-17 (Malachi Bayless 2, Grady Jackson 2); Free throws 2-6; Rebounds 25 (Mike Wise 9); Turnovers 15. Scoring: Joe Rager 2 1 5, Karson Kimmel 1 0 2, Mike Wise 2 0 4, Grady Jackson 2 0 6, Nick Middleton 5 0 10, Malachi Bayless 7 1 17, Eddie Dagher 1 0 2.
JV: Crestline 43-31.