LEXINGTON — Trent Richwine and his Lexington teammates turned up the heat Friday night at Lexington High School.
Faced with the unenviable task of shadowing Ashland’s high-scoring Isaac White, Richwine did an admirable job and the Minutemen won their third straight game with a 44-30 victory over the Arrows in Ohio Cardinal Conference play.
“It was all about our team defense. Our posts did a nice job of helping me on Isaac,” said Richwine, who limited White to two first-half points on just four field goal attempts. “They like to run a lot of flare screens, so my goal was to just stay with him and run after him.
“We wanted to limit his touches and we didn’t want to let him get easy looks at the basket.”
Nothing came easy for the Arrows (2-7, 1-4). The Minutemen (7-4, 3-2) limited Ashland to 33 percent shooting from the field (13-for-40) and 19 percent from beyond the 3-point arc (3-for-16). The Arrows attempts just two free throws all night and were held to almost 20 points below their season scoring average. The 30 points scored were 11 points fewer than Ashland’s previous season low.
“We are more of a perimeter-oriented team and we didn’t make any shots. We had some good looks, but we weren’t able to put them in unfortunately,” Ashland coach Tim Fralick said. “We feel like we do have a group that, at some point here they’re going to get going and make some shots and we’ll feed off that.
“They did the same stuff (defensively) that we thought they would, we just didn’t attack it. We weren’t aggressive as we needed to be.”
Lexington limited Ashland to five first-quarter points on 2 of 8 shooting. Lex sophomore Joey Zahn, who started in place of the injured Nick Leasure (ankle), outscored the Arrows on his own in the first quarter, connecting on a pair of 3-pointers in the early going. The Minutemen led 10-5 after the first quarter and 20-10 at halftime.
“I don’t think they shot the ball like they normally do and maybe you can credit some of that to our defense,” Lexington coach Scott Hamilton said. “Obviously their focus is Isaac and we were focused on him defensively. But we also knew that, with Trey Smith and (Brett) Vipperman, those guys can get off on the 3-pointer so we tried to make sure we were closing out on them.
“We tried to do some things to focus on Isaac, but at the same time we were telling guys we couldn’t give too much help.”
Lexington extended its advantage to 31-17 after three quarters, outscoring the Arrows 11-7 in the third and holding Ashland without a point for more than four minutes to start the second half. Any thoughts the Arrows had of making a fourth-quarter comeback were dashed early in the fourth as Richwine and Matt Barkett, who was held scoreless in the first half, both connected on 3-pointers.
“They moved the ball well and got some guys some open shots,” Fralick said. “I think they shot the ball pretty well tonight.
“I felt like we got some things going for short spurts here and there, but they seemed to come up with a big 3. I know Richwine hit a couple and Barkett. Those guys are good players and if you give them open looks they are capable of knocking them down.”
White led Ashland with 13 points on 6-for-16 shooting. Smith and Drew Dickinson each had five points for the Arrows.
Barkett topped Lexington with 13 points, including a 7-for-10 showing at the free throw line. Zahn and sophomore forward Jonah Yaussy each had eight, while Richwine and Charlie Keller had six points apiece.
In junior varsity action, Ashland rallied from a 9-8 halftime deficit for a 38-25 win. Griffin Gerwig led Ashland with nine points. A.J. Nickoli paced Lexington with eight points.
The Minutemen return to action tonight, visiting Madison. After starting the season 2-3, the Minutemen have won five of their last six.
“We got off to a slow start, but we have started to gain some confidence,” Richwine said. “Knocking off Mansfield Senior helped with that. Hopefully, going forward, we can get on a role and build some momentum in the second half of the season.”
Follow Curt Conrad on Twitter @curtjconrad.
