Homecoming: Mansfield native D’Vontae Johnson providing boost to Tygers

MANSFIELD — Whitehall-Yearling’s loss is Mansfield Senior’s gain in the eyes of coach Marquis Sykes.

The Tygers are in the hunt for the Ohio Cardinal Conference championship this season, thanks in no small part to newcomer D’Vontae Johnson, a Mansfield native who returned to his hometown this year after playing at Whitehall-Yearling High School last season.

The junior guard has started 13 of Senior High’s 14 games and is averaging 7.8 points and 3.4 rebounds a night.

“He’s gotten better and better every game,” Sykes said after Friday’s thrilling 72-71 overtime victory over Ashland. “He plays exactly the way we need him to play.”

The 5-foot-11 Johnson’s fingerprints were all over Friday’s win. He scored nine points and was a perfect 4-for-4 from the free throw line in the final 36 seconds of the extra session.

Johnson said the game’s finish was an improvement over the start.

“We came out slow. We’ve been doing that a lot recently,” Johnson said. “We did a good job of finishing it off.”

Johnson’s arrival couldn’t have come at a better time for Sykes — and his Tyger teammates.

The Tygers lost a talented senior class to graduation and the roster was further gutted when budding underclassmen D.J. Corbin and Carter Kessler moved out of the district.

Kyevi Roane and Rashad Reed Jr. were the only returning starters from last year’s 19-7 team.

“We’re glad to have him,” Roane said of Johnson earlier in the season. “He’s fit in well.”

As is often the case with a new player, there were some early growing pains.

“It took a long time for me to get comfortable,” said Johnson, a sophomore starter at Whitehall-Yearling in suburban Columbus last winter. “I feel like I’m very comfortable now.

“I feel like I’ve been here forever.”

So why did he come back to Mansfield?

“Our team wasn’t that good and I heard a lot of hype about (Mansfield Senior) and I like the way that they play,” Johnson said. “So I wanted to come try it out.”

The early returns have been favorable.

Johnson has connected on 43.6 percent of his 3-point field goal attempts (17-for-39) and is the team’s top free throw shooter at 88 percent (22-for-25). He also ranks second to Roane with 32 assists.

“He’s extra-coachable,” Sykes said. “He just does everything we need him to do. 

“He’s an unselfish basketball player and he does all those little things on both ends of the floor.”

Sykes said he also likes the intangibles the left-handed sniper brings to the floor.

“He’s a vocal leader for us and he leads by example,” Sykes said. “We’re glad to have him.”

The Tygers will need Johnson at his best going forward.

Senior High (10-4, 7-1) is tied in the loss column with Lexington in the chase for the OCC title. The Tygers host Lex on Tuesday (14-2, 8-1_ in a game that will go a long way in determining the OCC championship.

Mansfield Senior will also host New Philadelphia (4-4 in the OCC) and Wooster (5-3) in the coming weeks.

Mansfield Senior had lost three of four before Friday’s win over Ashland. Those losses came against non-conference opponents Lima Senior, Columbus Hartley and Big Walnut, three teams that are a combined 33-10. 

“That was one of the tougher non-conference stretches. We played a bunch of state-ranked opponents and we knew it would be difficult,” Sykes said. “We’ve been looking forward to this part of the season.

“We certainly feel more comfortable playing at home. No matter which opponent we play, we’re going to have to be well-prepared and we’re going to have to play well. That’s the bottom line.”