The Mansfield Christian Flames were on fire. They used 11 three point field goals in the first three quarters and a 68% field goal percentage to put up 94 points in a victory over the Lucas Cubs in Friday night round ball action.
The Flames would have six players post double figure points with senior sharpshooter Caleb Young and young sophomore Brandon Mount leading the way with 15 points each.
The balanced scoring attack was just what head coach John Kurtz, Jr. was looking for, “We not only wanted to come out and win a conference game, but I wanted to get our bench in and get our younger kids some time plus get the win so that was a double blessing there.”
The Flames connected on 11 threes through the first three quarters, and they didn’t attempt a deep ball in the final period. “I have had some teams that have made 15 threes, but it was great tonight because we went to [Sparta Highland] a week ago and went 0-9 so we spent a lot of prep time on it and it really paid off tonight.”
It was a tight game through one quarter with the score 18-12 at the end of the first but the Flames came out white hot in the second tallying an astonishing 31 points in the quarter alone to the Cubs nine. They just could not miss.
Lucas coach Kyle Pertuset wanted more out of his defense, “We are still not doing a good job of contesting every shot, we need to get a hand up and disrupt the shot and we just are not doing it every single time. I don’t know if teams come in confident because we have been down for a couple of years but it seems everyone we play shoots the ball well.”
Pertuset also saw some things he really liked, “We keep preaching competitiveness just come out and compete. That’s what I told the guys in the locker room, I am proud of the way they came out and competed. This is a process.”
The Cubs got into early foul trouble with 7 fouls with 3:18 left in the first quarter. The Flames did not take advantage of being in the bonus but finished shooting 68% from the field for the game.
Mansfield Christian dominated every aspect of the game. They had a total of 38 team rebounds, 16 assists and 94 points. The Cubs were only able to grab 21 rebounds, 2 assists and 33 points.
Joining Young in double figures was junior Brendan Ernsberger, sophomore Stevie Brown, and sophomore Kendall Cross each posting 11 points a piece. Senior Griffin wood had 10. Mount also has 9 rebounds and Brown had 8 assists to round out the stat sheet.
Junior forward Jakob Gerich was the lone double figure scorer for the Cubs posting 15 points of his own and added four rebounds. Sophomore Chance Stepp and Senior Thomas Schell each had 6. The Cubs had 6 players score while the Flames had 6 score double figures and all 10 players were able to put the ball in the basket.
The Cubs won the junior varsity game 51-47. Freshman Jacob Miller scored 31 points for the Cubs and Sophomore Cody Hignite had 20 points for the Flames.
The Cubs, 0-5, are still in search of their first season win and will face Loudonville next Friday.
The Flames move to 2-3 on the season and will travel to Clear Fork on Saturday night to take on the Colts.