GALION — Brock Noblit carried the Crestline Bulldogs Friday night.
The senior missed 14 of 16 minutes in the first half due to foul trouble but came storming out in the third period, scoring all 18 of Crestline’s points in the period, en route to 28 for the night as the Bulldogs dropped Galion, 60-49.
With the win, Crestline improved to 12-9 on the year. Galion fell to 0-21. The 12th win marked the first time Crestline has won 12 games in back-to-back seasons since 1994-95.
Even without Noblit, who scored six points in the first half, the Bulldogs scored the first 12 points of the game and led 19-4 late in the first period.
Galion, behind the hot hand of Rece Payne, who scored 25 points, 17 in the second half, the Tigers stormed back to within eight, 57-49, with 2:20 left in the game. But the Tigers never scored again.
Crestline coach Tyler Sanders felt that despite missing more than 16 minutes of the game, Noblit was hot and the Bulldogs kept going to him.
“(Noblit) shot the ball well, once we saw a couple of those threes, we called three plays in a row for him,” Sanders said. “He was getting loose on those double screens and knocked it down and carried us. When the hand is hot, you don’t want to go away from it.”
Still, his foul trouble has been an issue for the Crestline coach. Noblit fouled out with 2:31 left in the game.
“He’s been battling foul trouble all year, and the most impressive part is how he is able to get points,” Sanders said. “He can still score when he misses half of the game. He, and a couple of other players, whose defensive positioning is so bad at times. Brock is a phenomenal defender when he wants to be.
“Sometimes his defensive positioning off the ball is so bad it puts him in a position that, when somebody drives or catches, his guy makes a move and he is so out of position that he can’t recover without fouling,” Sanders added. “It’s something I’ve been talking to him, what is this, our 21st game? Hopefully, we can get it corrected before the tournament because we can’t afford for him to sit much.”
Payne brought the Tigers back, scoring eight points in the third and nine more in the fourth, but Galion coach Bobby Gossum said that his team simply ran out of gas.
“It hurt us,” Gossum said of the Bulldogs’ fast start. “That 12-0 run and 19-4 after that. But I felt we did a good job of staying in the game. If you go back two-three or four weeks, we would just have folded and just quit.
“But I’m proud of the guys because they didn’t,” Gossum added. “They kept battling and we got back into it. But anytime you get down that much to start the game out, you use a lot of energy to get back in the game. I thought that hurt us in the end.”
Gossum felt that Payne’s ability to score in the second half was a bright spot to build on.
“We’re not going to score a lot of points, so we have to be patient and sometimes pass up good looks to get great ones. They came out of the timeouts and responded,” Gossum said.
“(Payne) got hot. I know Brock got hot for them and Rece came out and matched that. We had kind of a nice little match up there between the two of them, going at each other. That’s the way he’s capable of playing. That’s the way we should have played all year. Unfortunately, with everything going on, with our inexperience, it’s tough for us.”
Sanders said that despite his team’s quick start, he thought they lost some focus in the second half.
“We had a fast start against Bucyrus, too,” Sanders said. “We talked to our kids, when we take a time out, we have a real serious conversation about what we’re going to do.
“We’re two minutes away from letting them tie it up or we’re two minutes away from pulling away big. And both times we let them come back into the game. It’s a little disappointing. An average team allows a game to be close and a good team focuses and takes them out. We’re not to that point. Now it’s about grinding.”
Post Ethan Clark scored eight points for the Bulldogs and guard Connor Lusk dropped three 3-point baskets in the first quarter and finished with nine.
“There’s like 50 fans here, obviously because of COVID, but it felt like a tournament atmosphere as loud as it was,” Sanders said. “Galion just kinda got more amped as the game went on so it had that tournament feel and it opened up our eyes to just how poorly we handled the ball late.
“At times it’s been a problem but then we’ll go through three or four games where it looks like it’s been cleaned up. It’s good that we can go back and revisit that and get ready for the tournament.”
Box score
Crestline 20 10 18 12 — 60
Galion 10 11 12 16 — 49
Crestline (12-9): Shots 19-33; 3-pt. shots 8 (Brock Noblit 5, Connor Lusk 3); Free throws 14-22; Rebounds 29; Turnovers 12. Scoring: Brock Noblit 7 9 28, Connor Lusk 3 0 9, Calvin Reed 2 1 5, Isaiah Perry 0 2 2, Lucas Cochran 2 0 4, Ethan Clark 4 0 8, Hunter Lawhorn 1 2 4.
Galion (0-21): Shots 16-40; 3-pt. shots 6 (Rece Payne 6); Free throws 11-14; Rebounds 16; Turnovers 12. Scoring: Troy Manring 2 2 6, Braydon Eckels 1 0 2, Rece Payne 7 5 25, Hanif Donaldson 3 0 6, Hudson Miller 1 0 2, Cooper Kent 2 4 8.