BUCYRUS — Mohawk was a co-favorite in the Northern 10 Athletic Conference basketball race.
After seeing the Warriors first hand, Bucyrus coach Justin Mattix will not argue the point.
Mohawk used a 28-point first quarter to explode past the host Redmen, 73-43, to stay perfect on the season.
“(Warrior coach Paul Dunn) knows what he is doing with them and he’s got a really nice team right now,” Mattix said. “They’re going through a good run of talent. They see the floor very well. It’s a really good basketball team that’s probably going to finish first or second in our conference this year.”
As good as the Mohawk offense was, Dunn acknowledged that his defense was the key to victory.
“The last two games, we’ve really struggled offensively to kind of hit on all cylinders,” Dunn said. “But we’ve been playing great defense. I told the kids if you play great defense, it’s going to turn into turnovers, it’s going to hopefully turn into fast-break layups or opportunities to get to the free throw line. In the first half, we did a pretty good job of that.”
Turnovers, indeed, were a problem for Bucyrus (1-6, 1-3 N10) throughout. The Redmen had five miscues in the first period to contribute to the Warriors’ fast start.
Bucyrus had leads early, the last at 8-7 on a basket by Kyle Hamm. But Mohawk (6-0, 4-0) went on a 21-6 run over the last 3:39 of the period and the Redmen never got the deficit back to single digits.
“We always want to win the shot battle,” Mattix said. “Tonight, we didn’t. They did a really, really good job of pressuring us, making us think that the long passes were there. We threw the long pass. They were just quick enough and athletic enough to jump that pass and they got a lot of turnovers.”
To Mattix’ point, the Warriors had 17 more shot attempts — 62-45 — than did Bucyrus and made 11 trips to the free throw line to just two for the Redmen.
An 18-11 advantage in the second quarter gave Mohawk a 46-25 bulge at halftime. Zach Hayman scored 15 of his game-high 18 points to set the tone.
“We just want to come down, pass the ball 3-4 times and get a good shot if we can or attack the basket,” Dunn said. “When we can play at that tempo and pace, we’re pretty good.”
“The Hayman kid is a really nice player,” Mattix said. “He sets his teammates up well, he knows when to shoot and knows when to go to the hole.”
On the other side, Bucyrus was never able to get into a consistent flow on offense. Harley Robinson-Koge scored 13 of his team-high 15 points in the first half.
“Harley really took over for them in the first half. He had over half their points,” Dunn said. “He is definitely one of the best players in our league. That was our focus coming out at halftime, not letting him get comfortable and lead a comeback on us.”
Even though Hayman scored only three points in the second half, the Warriors had more than enough weapons to take up the slack.
Keith Jenkins had 12 points, while Kaiden Hammer, Austin Tusing and Chris Klopp all had 11 points. Eight different Mohawk players scored in the fourth quarter alone. Klopp also had 10 rebounds.
Zane Seybert and Hamm had eight points each in support of Robinson-Koge, who also led the Redmen with eight rebounds.
“We wanted to dictate the tempo,” Mattix said. “But against them, they’re so athletic they just get to manipulate tempo the way they want it.
“They have 3-4 guys they know what they’re going to get out of them,” Mattix added. “They know they are going to get 10-15 points per night.”
“We’ve got guys who can attack the basket,” Dunn said. “Right now, we’re just trying to find guys to get their shots back and get the 3-point shooters going. If the scorers on the outside aren’t working, we’ve always got Chris (Klopp) on the inside.”
Mohawk also won the junior varsity game, 51-36. Troy Russell had 14 points to lead the Warriors. Tyler Hayman had 12 and Landon Snyder added 11.
Tod Spurlock topped Bucyrus with 13 points and Justin Webster finished with six.
Box score
Mohawk 28 18 9 18 — 73
Bucyrus 14 11 8 10 — 43
Mohawk (6-0, 4-0 N10): Shots 30-62; 3-pt. shots 6-19 (Zach Hayman 3, Kaiden Hammer, Austin Tusing, Trey Combs); Free throws 7-11; Rebounds 34 (Chris Klopp 10); Turnovers 11. Scoring: Keith Jenkins 6 0 12, Kaiden Hammer 5 0 11, Austin Tusing 4 2 11, Brock Brause 1 1 3, Landen Snyder 1 0 2, Zach Hayman 6 3 18, Hunter Gottfried 1 0 2, Trey Combs 1 0 3, Chris Klopp 5 1 11.
Bucyrus (1-6, 1-3 N10): Shots 21-45; 3-pt. shots 1-9 (Harley Robinson-Koge); Free throws 0-2; Rebounds 25 (Harley Robinson-Koge 8); Turnovers 24. Scoring: Zane Seybert 4 0 8, Jaylen Zehner 1 0 2, Kenton Lutz 3 0 6, Harley Robinson-Koge 7 0 15, Dylan Goff 2 0 4, Kyle Hamm 4 0 8.
JV: Mohawk 51-36.