MANSFIELD, Ohio — Mansfield Senior coach J.T. Reese gathered his team at midcourt after Monday’s 88-73 loss to Lima Senior and addressed the Tygers before heading back to the locker room.
“I told them we will try to see these guys again,” Reese said of his unusual courtside message. “We are going to learn from the loss and come back to the lab tomorrow ready to focus.”
The Tygers (14-7) had their five-game winning streak snapped and suffered their most one-sided loss of the season. The Spartans (17-3) won their seventh straight game and are 17-1 since opening the season with back-to-back losses.
The game was tied 39-39 at halftime and the Tygers trailed 58-56 after a David Hall field goal with 1:35 to play in the third before the Spartans ripped off a 7-0 run to close the quarter. A Jarius Ward bucket to open the fourth capped a 9-0 run and gave Lima Senior a 67-56 lead. The Tygers never threatened again.
“That’s a solid team. They are well coached and they have a great point guard,” Reese said of Lima junior Xavier Simpson, head coach Quincy Simpson’s son who already has a pocketful of Division I scholarship offers. “There were a couple possessions where we didn’t rebound and that allowed them to get some easy baskets. Now instead of a one- or two-possession game, the lead gets out to eight or nine.”
Lima out-rebounded Senior High 41-32 and swiped 20 offensive rebounds. Simpson lead six players in double figures with 18 points and six assists. Elijah Pughlsley had 16 points, while Jalen Thomas had 14. Ward had 11 while Marquevious Wilson and Rico Stafford each had 10. Rueben Flowers added nine points and a team-high six rebounds.
“We haven’t had that kind of balance all season, but it’s better that way,” Quincy Simpson said. “When you have five or six guys in double figures, we’re hard to defend.”
Mansfield Senior was led by Naradain James, who had 21 points and 10 rebounds. Asante’ Wilder had 17 points and five assists, while David Hall added 16 points and three blocked shots.
Second-half Surge: The Spartans outscored Senior High 49-34 in the second half.
“Our shot selection and our energy level defensively was better in the second half,” Simpson said. “I thought we played very poorly defensively in the first half and we took a lot of ill-advised shots.
“I don’t know if we were them down, but I thought that we were a lot quicker than they were. They demonstrated that they were a lot more physical than we thought they were, but we made more plays in the second half.”
Playoff Preview: There were nearly as many scouts as fans in the stands Monday evening. Lima Senior is the No. 2 seed in the Findlay district tournament, while Mansfield Senior is No. 4. The teams would meet in the district championship game if both were to advance that far.
“We didn’t show anything except our man-to-man and a zone we put in yesterday and will probably never play again,” Sompson said. “We had several things that we didn’t want to show because there were several teams here watching us.”
Reese and the Tygers approached the game differently.
“We tried to test some things,” Reese said. “I told the coaches before the game, win or lose this is a test. We wanted to find out who could play in these types of games.”
