GALION — Northmor is just getting acclimated to the hard court after a playoff run in football. Nine of 11 of Coach Zach Ruth’s varsity basketball team played football.
The acclimation process looked complete Saturday night as the Knights connected on nine 3-point shots and the defense frustrated Bucyrus all night en route to a 65-47 victory in a non-league encounter. It was the 22nd straight home win for Northmor.
“I don’t care if you’re talking fourth grade or varsity boys’ basketball, if you shoot the ball (well), you’re going to win games,” Ruth said. “We shot the ball well. Our football players don’t have their (basketball) legs yet. You wouldn’t think we’d shoot the ball well in that situation.
“I think tonight, it was just proof that mind over matter is true.”
Bucyrus (0-5) was also bothered by the Knights’ size, especially defensively.
“Right in the first quarter they had four straight blocked shots,” Redmen coach Justin Mattix said. “Their size, their length — they’ll use it to their advantage throughout the year.”
Both offenses sputtered at the start. The Redmen hit just three of 12 shots in the opening quarter but Northmor (3-1) managed just four of 13. However, a couple of free throws and a 3 gave the Knights an 11-6 lead at period’s end.
Northmor connected on three more 3s in the second quarter, from three different players, and the Knights eased out to a 27-17 advantage at intermission.
“We’ve always hung our hat on that defensive nail,” Ruth said. “And we’ve been playing very good defense lately.”
The Knights went on a 17-5 run to start the second half to blow the game open with a 44-22 lead. Logan Randolph rained in three shots from behind the arc to fuel the run.
“When you hit nine 3s in a game, you’re probably going to win quite a few of those games,” Mattix said. “They got into a rhythm tonight. It didn’t matter what we did.”
Jaylen Zehner scored all nine of his third-quarter points for the Redmen over the final 2:39 of the frame to help trim the deficit to 49-35 after three.
Northmor used a 16-12 edge in the fourth quarter to set the final score.
Randolph scored a game-high 18 points — on six 3s — to lead the Knights. Hunter Mariotti had 15 points and 10 rebounds and Blake Miller added 11 points.
Kyle Hamm led Bucyrus with 16 points, Zehner finished with 15, while Harley Robinson-Koge had 10 points and nine rebounds.
“Harley is a very good athlete and lately has been playing with a lot of confidence,” Ruth said. “Cole Dille — this is game four now he’s been on the other team’s best player. He did a phenomenal job with his length and his hustle.”
“Kyle played really well,” Mattix said. “Tonight, he goes and gets 16. It was one of the times you felt his presence was there. If we can get that Kyle Hamm next week and other weeks, we’ll feel pretty good.”
“Our size showed itself tonight,” Ruth said. “We can go in there 6-6, 6-5. If you’re not using it, it doesn’t matter. We’re able, when teams trap us, zone us, we can pick them apart with some of the sets we have with our size and our reads and we took full advantage of it tonight.”
“We tried to change some things defensively, attack them and approach them differently,” Mattix said. “They handled it well, they made adjustments and we weren’t able to tonight.”
Northmor also won the junior varsity game, 39-33. Mike Wise led Bucyrus with nine points and Spencer Huff added eight. Kooper Keen had 17 for the Knights and Graesin Cass finished with eight.
Bucyrus 14 19 14 14 — 61
Northmor 10 17 27 15 — 69
Bucyrus: (0-5): Shots 19-52; 3-pt. shots 2-7 (Nic Middleton, Harley Robinson-Koge); Free throws 7-9; Rebounds 29 (Harley Robinson-Koge 9); Turnovers 8. Scoring: Jaylen Zehner 7 1 15, Kenton Lutz 1 1 3, Nic Middleton 1 0 3, Harley Robinson-Koge 2 5 10, Kyle Hamm 8 0 16.
Northmor: (3-1): Shots 23-49; 3-pt. shots 9-16 (Logan Randolph 6, Alex Tuttle, Hunter Mariotti, D’Marcus Hudson); Free throws 10-13; Rebounds 32 (Hunter Mariotti 10); Turnovers 14. Scoring: Alex Tuttle 3 0 7, Hunter Mariotti 5 4 15, Logan Randolph 6 0 18, Blake Miller 5 3 13, D’Marcus Hudson 1 0 3, Trevor Gekler 3 3 9.