MANSFIELD — The eight-mile stretch of U.S. 42 between Mansfield and Lexington may as well be renamed Tobacco Row.

No Dean Dome. No Cameron Indoor Stadium.

But the Tygers and Minutemen have developed a basketball rivalry that would make Duke and North Carolina fans proud.

Tuesday’s Ohio Cardinal Conference showdown inside Pete Henry Gym, played in front of a near-capacity crowd, was the de facto conference championship game. The Minutemen won handily, thanks to a historic shooting night.

Lex is 9-1 in OCC play with two games remaining. The Minutemen can clinch no less than a share of their third straight conference crown with a win Friday at Madison.

Senior High is 7-2 in conference play with three games left. The Tygers need to win out and hope either Madison or Ashland can upset Lex to share the conference title. 

The fact the OCC title would come down to Lex and Senior High should come as no surprise. The two programs have dominated the league during its two-plus decades of existence.

The Ohio Cardinal Conference has been around since the fall of 2003. Lexington and Mansfield Senior have combined to win at least a share of 17 of the 21 conference championships and this year will make it 18 of 22.

“Senior High and Lex, let’s put (the Tygers) at the top of that list,” Lexington coach Scott Hamilton said when reminded of the shared OCC dominance. “They won a lot of them early on. There’s no doubt about it.”

Senior High won or shared eight championships in the conference’s first 10 years and rarely lost an OCC game during that span. The Tygers were a remarkable 123-15 in OCC play from 2003 to 2013 and are 223-67 all-time with nine OCC titles.

Lexington has eight OCC crowns to date and will likely pull into a tie with Senior High this year. The Minutemen are 186-105 in OCC play.

As with any good rivalry, the coaches play a big role. Duke had Mike Krzyzewski. North Carolina had Dean Smith and Roy Williams.

Lex has Hamilton and Mansfield Senior has Marquis Sykes.

Hamilton is the longest-tenured and winningest coach in Lexington history. He took over for Jamie Feick in 2012 and is 13-13 against Senior High in 13 seasons.

Sykes succeeded J.T. Reese in 2017. The 1999 Senior High grad is 7-9 against Lexington in eight seasons.

“Marquis and I have been doing this quite a while,” Hamilton said. “We enjoy it and we know each other.”

Another piece of a good rivalry is parity. While Senior High dominated the head-to-head in the OCC’s early years, things have swung in Lex’s favor recently. As it stands, Mansfield Senior owns a 28-16 advantage since the conference’s inception.

And more often than not, the games are competitive. In 22 regular-season meetings since 2014, 16 have been decided by 10 or fewer points. Seven of those games were decided by one possession or less and three went to overtime.

“They didn’t come out and surprise us,” Sykes said. There’s no secrets between us.”

The players involved share both a healthy disdain and a grudging respect for their cross-county rival.

“These are guys we know,” Hamilton said. “A lot of these guys are close friends.

“We can be buddies with these guys but when the ball tips, they don’t like us and we don’t like them.”