LOUDONVILLE — Lane Harper torched his former teammates and lifted Lucas to its third straight Mid-Buckeye Conference title.
A rugged senior forward, Harper scored a team-high 12 points as the Cubs rallied for a 54-46 win over Loudonville in a game that was closer than the final score suggested.
The showdown between the MBC’s top two teams featured 10 lead changes and two ties.
A Heidelberg football recruit, Harper attended Loudonville through his sophomore year before moving to Lucas. He scored seven of his 12 points in the third quarter as the Cubs (12-5, 8-1) rallied from a 22-20 halftime deficit.
“It feels pretty good,” Harper said. “I have a lot of respect for the coaches and players here. It’s just fun battling my buddies.”
Lucas scored the first six points of the third quarter to take a 26-22 lead. Harper’s conventional three-point play gave the Cubs a 25-22 advantage and his second career 3-pointer with 4:50 to go gave Lucas a 29-25 lead.
“It’s a special thing for Lane and we needed him tonight,” Lucas coach Taylor Iceman said. “To clinch a conference title, I wouldn’t have thought Lane would be our leading scorer. He did a lot of really good things.
“He does a lot of the ugly stuff that you don’t get to see. When you can get that kind of offense from him with everything else he does, it’s huge.”
Loudonville’s Jacob Gessner scored nine straight points as the Redbirds (9-10, 6-3) took a 34-32 lead with 1:48 to play in the third. Gessner, who scored his 1,000th career point earlier this season, had a game-high 18 points.
“We were so worried about Gessner … and they run a lot of stuff for him,” Iceman said. “We were doing a great job of knowing where he was and communicating, but then we were standing there watching him and we weren’t boxing anybody out.”
The Cubs took a 37-36 lead to the fourth but a pair of Gessner free throws with 7:30 to play gave Loudonville a 40-39 lead. It would be the Birds’ final lead of the evening, however, as Lucas closed the game on a 15-6 run. Ethan Sauder and Ethan Wallace each connected on critical 3-pointers during the stretch.
“Their two dudes, the Ethans, they’re pretty special,” Loudonville coach Kelly Seboe said. “They each have played about 100 games.”
Sauder and Andrew Smollen each had 10 points for the Cubs. Wallace and Corbin Toms each had eight.
Gessner was the only Loudonville player to reach double figures. Kyle Maltarich had eight points, while Chuck Ganson added seven.
“Our guys defend at a 95 percent rate and also we have a 50 percent,” Seboe said. “Lucas stays at 90 percent the entire game. That’s the consistency piece that makes them so good.”
The Cubs have won three straight conference championships for the first time in program history.
“It’s a huge accomplishment when you stop and think about where we came from,” Iceman said. “It seems like it was yesterday that we were talking about the first (conference title) in forever. It’s pretty cool.”
