MOUNT VERNON — Winning basketball games in the Ohio Cardinal Conference this year has meant doing the little things right.
Boxing out. Rebounding. Limiting turnovers and winning the 50-50 balls. It has required 32 minutes of hyper-vigilance, with the vast majority of games being decided by one or two possessions.
Mount Vernon hasn’t been perfect; no one has, in this topsy-turvy league that almost defines parity. But the Yellow Jackets got it right Wednesday night.
“Right to the end, those little things that sometimes we overlook for the flashy plays, those are the little things that tough basketball teams do,” Mount Vernon head coach Nick Coon said. “And I think tonight we took a step forward – a much-needed step forward – in the toughness area.”
Mount Vernon (10-11, 6-6 in the OCC) used 32 minutes of hustle and heart to outlast league-leading Lexington (13-9, 7-5), 50-45, in their conference finale. The Yellow Jackets and Minutemen will split the season series, with Lexington having won at home by 8 points on Dec. 28.
1. Ashland (7-4)
2. Lexington (7-5)
2. West Holmes (7-5)
2. Wooster (7-5)
5. Mount Vernon (6-6)
6. Madison (4-7)
7. Mansfield Senior (2-8)
Lexington came into Wednesday’s matchup tied with Ashland (12-8, 7-4) for first place in the conference. A win would have guaranteed the Minutemen at least a share of their first OCC title since 2018-19. But Mount Vernon had other plans.
Now, Lexington’s OCC-title fate will rest in Mansfield Senior’s hands. If the Tygers (4-14, 2-8) upset Ashland on the road Friday, on the final night of the regular season, Lexington will share the OCC title with Ashland, West Holmes and Wooster (all would finish 7-5).
If Ashland wins, it will claim the conference crown outright.
“Go Marquis. I’m rooting for you, buddy,” Lexington head coach Scott Hamilton said Wednesday with a smile, referring to Mansfield Senior head coach Marquis Sykes.
“I told the guys, as far as the OCC goes, we’re done. We’re focused on the tournament now. And however it pans out, we’re happy, but we’ve gotta get focused on the tournament,” he added.
“We’re not taking days off. We’ve got enough to work on. … I think we’re ready to go, and we’ll start working tomorrow night on the tournament.”
Mount Vernon led most of the way Wednesday, but Lexington made things interesting late.
Down 44-37 with 1:18 left, the Minutemen mounted a furious comeback. Junior Hudson Moore converted a put-back lay-in to cut the deficit to 5. Then, after Lexington forced a Mount Vernon turnover with full-court pressure, Moore knocked down a three from the top of the key to make it 44-42 with 28 seconds left.
Junior Baden Forup converted an old-fashioned three-point play following two Mount Vernon free-throws, narrowing the margin to 46-45 with 10 seconds left. But the Jackets canned two more from the stripe, and as Lexington senior Tyler Jackson charged up the court with five seconds remaining, Mount Vernon made one final play to seal the deal.
Senior Owynn Gleason ceded ground to Jackson initially, but poked the ball out from behind, and Mount Vernon’s Beau Bridges came up with it. The senior would knock down two more free-throws with three seconds remaining to put the game out of reach.
“When you think about it, (we had) 22 turnovers tonight. The last one (was memorable), we can’t forget about the first 21. The last one sucks, but we can’t forget about the first 21,” Hamilton said.
“And I told the guys, that’s what makes the difference – when you box your guy out in the first quarter; when you come up with that 50-50 ball in the second quarter – every one of those possessions matters.
“There were numerous times tonight where we had two hands on the ball and they punched it away and they came up with it. That’s just that grinding toughness, and I told them, we’ve gotta find it.”
Coon, meanwhile, credited his team’s toughness for the victory. Mount Vernon did the little things right, and it came out on top.
“It was a fight down the stretch. Every possession, it seemed like it was do-or-die, offensively and defensively. I think we made enough free-throws late and got just enough stops,” Coon said.
“With their size, it’s non-stop – a shot goes up, and if they miss it, it’s a battle. And you’ve gotta somehow get a body on a body, and then the job’s still not done because they’re so tall and long that they can still get to the basketball, so then you’ve gotta grab it with two hands and get it tight.”
Gleason and fellow senior Nolan Belcher led the Jackets in scoring Wednesday with 11 points apiece. Bridges added 9, while juniors Trevor Buttke had 8 and Cooper Carpenter had 7. Junior Caden Rowland added 4 for Mount Vernon.
Lexington was anchored by Forup, who tallied a game-high 21 points. Moore scored 9 for the Minutemen, while senior Caden Eichler added 6.
Forup, a 6-foot-7 all-conference forward, scored 20 points in Lexington’s win over Mount Vernon in December. Moore, his 6-foot-3 interior accomplice, added 12.
Coon said Mount Vernon’s goal Wednesday was to make life difficult for Lexington’s big men. That meant full-court pressure on Lexington’s guards and a heavy dose of digging if post-entry passes were able to be completed.
“We tried to stir it up a little bit with their guards. We really had an emphasis of defending with pressure on the perimeter, just to try to make it tough (for) entry passes into the post. And then if they did get catches in the post, another point of emphasis for us was to try to dig it out of there – try to make those guys pick up their dribble and throw it out of there,” Coon said.
“You know, Forup still had a really good game, Hudson Moore still had a really good game, but I think more times than not, we made it difficult and we made them earn it. We didn’t just give them buckets around the rim, like at times we did up there at their place earlier in the season.”
Mount Vernon dominated early on the defensive end, leading 10-4 after one quarter. Gleason nailed a corner three late in the second quarter to give the Jackets a 19-15 lead at halftime.
Lexington took its first lead since midway through the first quarter early in the third, when senior Jack Depperschmidt canned a pull-up three to make it 20-19. There were six more lead changes in the period, as the Jackets and Minutemen traded buckets.
A two-handed transition dunk from Forup gave Lexington a 28-27 lead with 2:40 remaining. But the Jackets would not surrender the lead again. Bridges scored the next possession on a tip-in, and Mount Vernon led the rest of the way.
The Jackets carried a 32-28 lead into the fourth quarter, then stretched it to 6 on back-to-back buckets from Carpenter. Belcher gave the Jackets their largest lead of the night with 5:07 left, drilling a corner three to make it 40-31.
Lexington stormed back late, but Mount Vernon put the game away at the free-throw line. The Jackets shot 13-for-15 from the stripe – including 8-for-8 in the fourth quarter – to send The Hive home happy.
“We’ve been, for the most part, pretty steady (from the free-throw line this year). I think we’re right around 70%,” Coon said.
“And making free-throws, it’s repetition, but the biggest thing is believing in yourself, having confidence, stepping up there and knowing you can knock it down. And I thought we did that.”
Buttke went 6-for-6 from the free-throw line in the fourth quarter, proving once again to be a reliable finisher in the clutch.
“We got him the ball, he’s been our most consistent free-throw shooter this year,” Coon said. “So it was good execution, getting him the basketball, and then his part, stepping up (and) making free-throws towards the end of it.”
Lexington fell behind early Wednesday and struggled to make up ground. By the time it did, it was too little, too late. Hamilton said it wasn’t the first time.
“We’re really not a good team at coming from behind in the games that we’ve been successful in,” the 10th-year head coach said. “We’ve been able to battle for 32 (minutes) in a lot of games, but typically if we get off to that good start, it’s a much better situation for us.”
Lexington’s regular season is now complete. The Minutemen will host Clear Fork in the first round of the Division II sectional tournament on Feb. 25.
Hamilton hopes his team’s experience in the OCC this year – where nothing was guaranteed, and every possession proved crucial – will pay off come tournament time.
“There’s a reason that we play in this league, and that’s to play schools that are much bigger than us. That prepares us for our second season,” Hamilton said.
“And I told the guys, if you’re a junior, you just went through a full season – now, you’re a senior. If you’re a sophomore, you just went through a full season – now, you’re a junior.
“So we told them, this one, I want it to sink in, I want it to stink, I want it to suck tonight. But tomorrow morning, when you wake up, it’s tournament time. And so hopefully we’ll get after it tomorrow and get better.”
Hamilton said valuing each possession and trusting each other will be key to making a run.
“I think we’re getting there,” he said. “We’re at a point now where the regular season’s over, our conference championship is probably out the window now, but we’ve got a fresh start. Everybody starts at 0-0 now. And our second goal is always to win the district.
“We told the guys, ‘That’s three games. Can you give me three games?’ We looked at our possible opponents and we’re like, ‘Yeah, we can hang with all of them.’ But we’ve gotta do it.”
Mount Vernon, meanwhile, will look to finish its regular season strong on Friday, when it hosts Northridge. It will be Senior Night for Belcher, Gleason, Bridges, Will Daley and Logan Kirby.
The Jackets will then wait a week before facing the winner of Newark and Teays Valley in the second round of the Division I sectional tournament on Feb. 25.
Coon said his team will look to use Friday as an opportunity to not only honor the program’s seniors, but also build momentum heading into the postseason.
“With coaches, you hear all the time, ‘We attack each game the same.’ But we don’t here. Senior Night’s a special night for us. And we have five guys that have been in our program since the seventh grade. We’re gonna honor those guys Friday night,” Coon said.
“That’s a special night here at Mount Vernon and in our program – especially for me, because I was one of those guys, so I understand what it means. And we’re very proud of those five for being in our program all these years, because it’s not easy. Basketball is not an easy sport; not everybody can do it all the way through their career. So we’re excited for that and that’s definitely a special night (and) we’re looking forward to competing at a high level.
“We feel like we got a little momentum back on our side tonight. We want to continue that Friday, heading into the tournament next week.”
