LEXINGTON — Matt Barkett’s floor game was every bit as sharp as the new suit he wore Friday night.
The well-dressed Lexington senior scored a career-high 20 points and the Minutemen stunned previously unbeaten Mansfield Senior 60-49 in Ohio Cardinal Conference action at Lexington High School.
“I always wear a suit,” said Barkett, who was 5-for-8 from the floor, connected on his only 3-point field goal attempt and sank 9 of 10 free throws. “That’s my tradition.”
The Tygers (5-1, 3-1) opened the game on a 7-0 run before Barkett and the Minutemen (4-3, 1-2) got untracked. Lexington trailed 10-6 after the first quarter — Lex had more turnovers (seven) than points in the period — before outscoring Senior High 14-11 in the second behind nine points by Barkett.
“I don’t even know what hit me. I shot poorly at Hillsdale last week (a 60-50 Lexington win). I still had 10, but I didn’t play that well and lost a little confidence during the week,” said Barkett, who also grabbed seven rebounds and committed just one turnover against Senior High’s vaunted pressure. “Right when I hit the 3 in the first half … I just kind of knew it was going to be my night.”
Lexington trailed 21-20 at halftime before piecing together a game-changing 12-0 run during a four-minute stretch to close the third quarter. Trent Richwine’s traditional three-point play gave the Minutemen a 31-26 lead and a Joey Zahn 3-pointer bumped Lexington’s advantage to 34-26 with 2:19 to play in the third. A sophomore, Zahn matched Barkett with 20 points.
“If you think you’re going to lose, you might as well not play,” said Zahn, who was 5-for-8 from the floor and 2-for-2 from beyond the 3-point arc. “We had confidence in ourselves to go out there and compete.”
Lexington outscored Senior High 18-8 in the third quarter and took a 38-29 advantage to the fourth. The Tygers could never mount a serious comeback as Lex connected on 11 free throws in the final four minutes. The Minutemen were 23 of 30 from the free throw line, while the Tygers were 9 for 12.
The Tygers, who came in shooting 48 percent from the field and 39 percent from beyond the arc, connected on just 16 of 57 field goals Friday (28 percent). Senior High was 8-for-25 on trey attempts (32 percent).
“I tell you, we go 8-for-32 from 2-point land and 8-for-25 from 3-point range. That’s the game,” Mansfield Senior coach J.T. Reese said. “I can dress it up cute, but we didn’t make a shot.”
Mario Davison led Senior High with 16 points. Naradain James had 12. Donovyn Benson, who came in averaging a team-high 15.6 points a game, was limited to five points on 2 of 5 shooting.
“All week we were working on Benson,” Lexington coach Scott Hamilton said. “We thought he was their go-to guy when they needed something. Even when we were on the offensive side, we instructed them to pass it to Benson’s guy so we could throw the ball away from Benson.
“The guys were really playing loose. We talked about being the underdog on our home floor tonight. Everybody knows the stories of the underdog. We told them it was up to them to go out and make it happen.”
The Minutemen out-rebounded the Tygers 36-28.
“To out-rebound Mansfield, with the size they have and the athleticism, that was a surprise.”
The Tygers were again without the services of 6-foot-7 senior Robert Jones. The versatile swingman sat out his second straight game after becoming dehydrated after Mansfield Senior’s win at Wooster last Friday.
Jones didn’t practice all week, but warmed up Friday night. He is expected to return when the Tygers visit Orrville next week.
“Sure, this is a wake-up call,” Reese said. “We need to fine-tune some things, most notably our practice habits. We’ll get it together.”
The Minutemen host unbeaten Ontario on Saturday night.
“We told the guys, make it a quick celebration,” Hamilton said. “We’re probably going to be considered an underdog again on our home floor.”
In junior varsity action, Mansfield Senior outscored Lexington 12-6 in the fourth quarter to pull away for a 38-30 win. Jenerio Minard led the Tygers with nine points, while Link Briggs, Raheem Clark and Mario Young each had six. Tytray Gilmore led Lex with nine.
Follow Curt Conrad on Twitter @curtjconrad.
