“I thought we were intense, guarding defensively, hit some shots and got some good looks,” McGuire said. “I told them that we knew Tecumseh wasn’t going to lay over. They were going to battle back. It’s just what they do. It’s what they’ve always done.”
Senior Cody Siemon had a game-high 19 points and junior Kyle Dingeman added 12 as the Braves improved to 3-0 overall.
Sophomore Chase Stafford had 15 points as the Arrows fell to 0-4 overall.
The Braves jumped out to a 6-0 lead, forcing a Tecumseh timeout. The Arrows called another timeout after Shawnee took a 15-1 lead.
With about 12 seconds remaining, Arrows sophomore Austin Clark hit a layup for Tecumseh’s first basket of the game to make it 21-4. The slow starts have been an issue for the Arrows this entire season, said Tecumseh coach Kyle Leathley.
“We’ve been digging ourselves some holes and the one thing our kids have been doing is still playing and competing,” he said. “We’ve got some young guys out there and that’s what you hope for. You have to keep playing and keep trying to focus on the next step, focus on what’s in front of us no matter what the score may be.”
As McGuire predicted, the Arrows didn’t go down without a fight. Tecumseh outscored the Braves 13-8 in the second quarter to cut Shawnee’s lead to 29-17 at the half.
“We relaxed a little bit and they switched to the zone (defense) and zone pressure,” he said. “Two of the main things were turnovers and offensive rebounding. Those were the two things we had to be better at. We knew they were going to be aggressive and we kind of kept them in the game with those two things.”
Tecumseh pulled to within nine points at 44-35 at the end of the quarter on a 3-pointer by Stafford, but the Arrows wouldn’t get any closer.
“We’re pretty young and there’s going to be good and bad that goes with that,” Leathley said. “I think that showed tonight. At times, it looked OK and sometimes it didn’t.”
Shawnee senior Darian Dixon went 5-for-6 from the free throw line in the fourth quarter to seal the victory for the Braves.
Shawnee is 3-0 to start the season for the third time in four years. With a mostly new group of varsity players, the key to success will be to get more consistent as the season progresses, McGuire said.
“We’ve had the consistency in stretches in practice,” he said. “We’ve had some ups-and-downs in practice and it kind of showed in that case. It’s a lot of guys who are new to playing varsity basketball and it’s early in the season. We’re not where we want to be yet, but it’s encouraging the way we’ve started and the way we’ve kind of put our stamp on the game to start. Hopefully, we can get to where we can maintain that throughout 32 minutes.”
Shawnee is seeking its first CBC title since 2015. They’ll be competing in a new division this winter after moving to the Mad River Division. The Braves have finished runner-up in the Kenton Trail each of the past three seasons.
“It’s a good group of guys,” McGuire said. “We continue to talk about how our expectations have to be high. We can’t be satisfied with what we’re doing.”
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