The Lexington Minutemen picked up an Ohio Cardinal Conference (OCC) victory on Friday night by beating the Clear Cork Colts by 17 at Lexington High School. Lexington’s 1971-1972 state runner-up boys basketball team was in attendance and were treated to a sample of their alma mater’s best basketball this season.
Lexington jumped out to an early lead thanks in part to a lackluster start by the Colts.
“I was not real pleased with our intensity in the first half. I thought our last three games (all Colts victories) we came out and our energy level was there and tonight our energy level was not there,” said Clear Fork Head Coach Steven Bechtel. “When we press you have to have that energy or it gets exposed, and Lex did a great job of exposing us.”
Lexington used a 11-1 run early in the second quarter to build on their 8 point first quarter lead and settled in. The Minutemen shot 66% from the field in the first half and 75% from the three point line.
Sophomores Joey Zahn and Jonah Yaussy poured in 10 first half points each. On defense, sophomore Joey Vore and senior Trent Richwine held Colts scoring machine Ridge Winand to just seven first half points on three of seven shooting.
“Joey Vore is a great defensive guy. Joey Zahn is a great offensive guy. We are trying to do what we did last year – when we went eight guys deep – and it helps when you have guys who are talented on each end of the floor,” said Lexington Minutemen Head Coach Scott Hamilton.
“Jonah has been playing very well off the bench, we start two seniors ahead of him mostly to keep the chemistry there but he loves his role and comes out and works hard in practice and in the games as you saw tonight.”
While Lexington spread scoring around, the Colts looked to their two main leaders in junior guard Kadin Chrastina and Winand to carry most of the scoring load. The two combined for 43 of the 59 total points for the Colts. The rest of the Colts would combine for just 16 points. Chrastina led all scorers with 23 points and Winand followed with 20.
“You hope to just contain (Chrastina and Winand) and I don’t think we did a good job of containing them by giving up 43 combined points, said Coach Hamilton. “But at the same time I am confident that we could provide as much help on those guys and we tried to play a little bit of zone, then switched back to man. We were lucky enough to knock down some shots and build confidence.”
The Lexington Minutemen saw four players reach double figures led by Zahn with 19 points. He connected on three of four three point attempts and buried all six of his free throw attempts. Yaussy came up big off of the bench with 17 points on the night and led all rebounders with eight. Senior guard Matt Barkett poured in 14 and senior guard Trent Richwine added 12. The Minutemen shot 63% for the entire game and collected 31 total rebounds.
Hamilton noted, “This was a big game for us because this pretty much told us who the number three seed in our sectional was going to be. The meeting in Sunday, Norwalk and Ontario will have the top two seeds. This game was a great momentum boost for us. Hopefully, we get the third seed but, then, or course, we will have to decide if we want to go with Ontario or Norwalk. Do we take the number two team in the state or the number four? We are up to the challenge.”
Clear Fork drops to 6-8 on the season and 3-6 on the OCC. The Colts face a touch remainder of their season with 7 games in 11 days, “In practice it has to be less reps and more preparation, getting shots up, understanding the game plan, and then obviously going out and playing. We will dig deeper into our bench and hope guys step up,” Coach Bechtel said. The Colts will host Ashland in Wednesday.
Lexington improves to 10-8 on the season and 5-6 in the OCC. They will travel to Galion on Tuesday.
