UPPER SANDUSKY — Coach Jeff Winslow’s face had an expression of relief on it. His Rams had, after all, just won their first game of the year after six losses.
Upper Sandusky wore down scrappy Bucyrus in the first half then pulled away to a 73-44 Northern 10 Athletic Conference victory.
“I thought it was going to come (Friday) night (against Mohawk),” Winslow said of the win. Upper Sandusky led the then-undefeated Warriors through three quarters, before dropping a heartbreaker, 63-56.
Winslow said getting healthy as a team and a renewed focus were the keys to success for the weekend.
“Defensively — we played a lot of zone early on. We just committed to our man-to-man defense,” Winslow said. “That just gets the offense going. I think the senior leadership of Levi Lamb especially and Ethan Kessler — he’s led in practice, and in the last two games, came out with 20-plus points.”
Kessler led the Rams with 21 points on the night and Lamb added 16.
On the other side, Bucyrus may have played its best defensive quarter in the first period and early into the second. But the Redmen were not able to sustain it.
“We’re changing some things up in practice. We’re changing some things with our game plan,” Bucyrus coach Scott Gifford said. “We saw in the first quarter and the beginning of the second that it’s working. Then we go back to our old habits — take two or three minutes off and the other team goes on a run. I only have so many timeouts. That’s just a characteristic of a rebuilding program.”
Malachi Bayless and Dylan Coppler combined for the team’s 13 first-quarter points, eight by Bayless, as the Redmen stayed with the Rams. They trailed only 17-13 after one.
Bucyrus (1-6, 0-4 N10) scored the first five points of the second quarter on a pair of free throws by Blayne Barto and a 3-point shot from Tyson O’Brien to grab their only lead of the game, at 18-17. The Rams took control from there.
“I think we adjusted a little bit,” Winslow said. “The Bayless kid was really hurting us, getting into the paint, and Holden (Daris) feeling him out, seeing how much he could pressure him and how much he should back off.
“Holden’s a really good defender,” Winslow added. “He held (Mohawk’s A.J.) Hess to one point after three quarters. After he felt (Bayless) out and how far he needed to play off him, we stopped his penetration a little better. He was killing us early on.”
Upper Sandusky (1-6, 1-3) went on a 21-6 run to halftime after falling behind to take a 38-24 lead at intermission. The Redmen never recovered.
It was still 27-22 Rams when Bayless hit a pair of free throws with 3:24 to go in the second period, but the hosts scored 11 of the last 13 points in the period to get the lead to 14.
“The positive we have to take away from it is we were competitive in the first half,” Gifford said. “We went into halftime down (14). At one point, we had it within (5) points. I told them we have to build off that, quarter by quarter, and eventually we’ll start winning games.”
With the Rams offense in high gear, the Redmen were outscored, 35-20, in the second half. They committed 26 turnovers for the game, which lent to the scoring differential. Upper Sandusky’s defense was responsible in large part.
“I thought we did a good job of getting them into trap spots, getting some traps and getting some turnovers,” Winslow said. “Those turnovers were live turnovers which led to easy shots, which gets your offense going. Now you feel good about yourself, you hit some shots, something we’ve been lacking the last couple of weeks.”
Bayless led Bucyrus with 17 points and Coppler added seven points and six rebounds.
‘They were hitting their shots. They were hitting everything,” Gifford said of the Rams. “And offensive rebounds (17-6 in the Rams’ favor). (Post) Noah (Burke) got into some foul trouble and we had to sit him a little bit. You just have to tip your hat to them.”
Daris was a third Ram in double figures with 12 to support Kessler’s 21 and Lamb’s 16. Kessler pulled down seven rebounds.
To Gifford’s point, Upper Sandusky hit 29 of 66 shots including nine of 28 from 3-point range. Kessler had five 3s.
“We had really good energy for 32 minutes,” Winslow said. “We played 32-minute games the last two nights, for the most part. It’s something we had been lacking.
“I like where we’re headed,” Winslow added. “I think we can stay in the thick of things.”
“We strive to work on the fundamentals of passing, dribbling, and catching the ball every single day,” Gifford said. “We saw some improvement there. We’ve just got to go back to the drawing board, practice more, working on it and keep getting better.”
Upper Sandusky also won the junior varsity game, 70-36. Josh Heilman had 15 points for the Rams and Eric Gottfried added 14. Tyrone Mass topped the Redmen with nine points.
Box score
Bucyrus 13 11 8 12 — 44
Upper Sandusky 17 21 24 11 — 73
Bucyrus (1-6, 0-4 N10): Shots 17-39; 3-pt. shots 2-11 (Tyson O’Brien, Kam Lewis); Free throws 8-13; Rebounds 29 (Dylan Coppler 6); Turnovers 26. Scoring: Tyson O’Brien 1 0 3, Blayne Barto 0 3 3, Chris Neal 1 0 2, Noah Burke 1 0 2, Kam Lewis 2 0 5, Kavan Combs 1 1 3, Dylan Coppler 3 1 7, Malachi Bayless 7 3 17, Randy Banks 1 0 2.
Upper Sandusky (1-6, 1-3 N10): Shots 29-66; 3-pt. shots 9-28 (Ethan Kessler 5, Levi Lamb 2, Holden Daris, Eric Gottfried); Free throws 6-15; Rebounds 34; Turnovers 12. Scoring: Holden Daris 5 1 12, Josh Heilman 1 0 2, Justin Heilman 1 4 6, Brock Montgomery 3 1 7, Eric Gottfried 1 0 3, Sam Smith 1 0 2, Levi Lamb 7 0 16, Kaimen Iles 2 0 4, Ethan Kessler 8 0 21.
JV: Upper Sandusky 70-36.