KIDRON — Considering the composition of each team’s roster, the present and future of Mid-Buckeye Conference basketball was on display Friday night at Central Christian.
Junior forward Ruben Carr scored 20 points as Kidron Central Christian clinched its first MBC championship with a 72-66 win over Mansfield Christian.
The title was the fourth in program history and first since KCC captured the Northeast Athletic Conference crown in 1991. KCC won Freeway Conference championships in 1975 and 1979.
What’s more, the Comets (13-5, 7-0) did it with a roster that features only three seniors. Carr was one of four players to score in double figures and three of them were underclassmen.
Mansfield Christian (10-9, 6-2) has four seniors on its roster and the Flames’ junior varsity team is 8-0 in MBC play. Davion Mack, the varsity squad’s leading scorer, is just a sophomore.
“They’re young and we’re young,” MCS coach Cary Craner said. “Looking at the conference, I don’t like to look that far down the road, but it could be us and them again next year.”
First-year KCC coach Zach Kooker agreed, noting KCC beat MCS in the eighth-grade championship Thursday.
“They’ve got a good program all the way through and we’d like to think we do, too,” Kooker said. “Both programs have built from the ground up.”
The Flames led 16-13 after the first quarter and 20-16 early in the second before the Comets came to life. Carr scored nine straight points to give KCC a 25-20 lead and a Silas Coleman 3-pointer with 4:31 to play in the period pushed the advantage to 28-20.
“We let (Carr) do whatever he wanted,” Craner said. “You can’t let him get in the paint. We’ve got to figure out how to stop that going forward.”
Mansfield Christian closed out the quarter on a 12-8 run and trailed 36-32 at the half.
KCC took a 55-39 lead — its biggest of the night — on a Carr layup with 1:05 to play in the third. The Comets were on top 55-42 after three.
MCS made things interesting in the fourth, but never got within striking distance. An Evan Hager 3-pointer made it 72-66, but only 20 seconds remained.
Mack led the Flames with 25 points. The combo guard dropped 11 in the fourth quarter.
“He’s a phenomenal player,” Kooker said. “He came to play tonight. He was getting downhill on us quite a bit.”
Taylor Hahn added 14 for MCS. Hager had 13 and Evan Keib chipped in with eight.
Coleman backed Carr with 19 points. Drew Badertscher had a dozen and Lyle Endsley added 10.
While a share of the conference title slipped through Mansfield Christian’s fingers, Craner said the Flames still have plenty to play for.
“We have three more games in the regular season, then we start our second season,” Craner said. “It’s good to have these tough games at the end of the year because we’re going to have tough ones in the tournament.”