BELLVILLE — Chance Barnett has barely had time to celebrate his recent milestone.
Clear Fork has been too busy recently.
The Richland Bank Athlete of the Week, Barnett became just the fifth member of Clear Fork’s 1,000 point club in a 66-47 win at River Valley on Jan. 26. It was the first of five games in nine days for the Colts, who haven’t lost since the calendar flipped to 2018 and are riding a 10-game winning streak.
“It’s a testament to all the hard work I’ve put in over the years,” said Barnett, who scored 20 points in Clear Fork’s 53-48 overtime win at Ontario on Saturday. “It’s not something that was just given to me. I had to fight and scrap for the last four year in the gym when nobody was seeing the work that went into it.”
Barnett joined Bob Hoyt (1,664), Doug Ute (1,464), Ridge Winand (1,314) and Scott Sellers (1,110) in the exclusive fraternity.
“Thousand point scorers don’t come along very often,” said Clear Fork coach Steven Bechtel, who also coached Winand before his graduation in 2014. “It’s not easy to do.
“It’s a great accomplishment.”
The Colts (15-3, 11-0) own a one game lead over Pleasant in the Mid-Ohio Athletic Conference championship chase. Barnett is the MOAC’s leading scorer, averaging 17.6 points a game.
The 6-foot-3 senior swingman has been on a scoring binge recently, averaging 21 points a game in the past week. He scored 24 in a 72-68 overtime win over Triway on Jan. 27 and had 16 of his 21 points in the second half of a 61-54 win at Galion last Thursday.
“Chance has really stepped up,” Bechtel said. “People have thrown a lot of different defenses at him. One night he’ll be guarded by a 6-7 kid and the next night he’ll have a 5-10 kid on him who is a lot faster than he is.”
Two of Clear Fork’s last four wins have come in overtime, while 10 wins are by 10 points or fewer. With just four regular season games remaining, the Colts are guaranteed of their first winning season since 2012-13. The last time Clear Fork won as many as 15 games in a season was 2003-04.
“We’ve matured a lot as a team,” said Barnett, who broke into Clear Fork’s starting lineup midway through his freshman year. “On nights like (Saturday), when things weren’t going our way, we kept it between our ears and didn’t get rattled. We were able to pull out a win, which shows the maturity of our young guys.”
Clear Fork can clinch at least a share of the MOAC championship with a win Friday over Pleasant. The Colts beat the Spartans 66-61 at Pleasant on Jan. 23.
Clear Fork also has a rematch with Ontario at the Colt Corral on Feb. 20
“Nothing has been decided yet,” Bechtel said of the MOAC title chase. “It’s one game at a time. All our our focus will be on Pleasant and that is all we will talk about for the next four or five days.”
The Colts should be in line for a high seed at the district tournament draw this weekend. Clear Fork moved back up to Division II this year. Of the 14 teams in the rugged Division II Madison district tournament field, 10 have winning records.
“No matter who we play, we’re always confident we have a shot to win the game,” Barnett said. “We’ve put together and pretty good string and we want to keep it going.”
