Kenton Ridge struck back with a 12-0 run early in the second quarter to grab the lead for good, beating the host Arrows 74-68 in a Central Buckeye Conference Kenton Trail Division game on Friday night.
Kenton Ridge junior Xavier White scored 23 points, sophomore Trey Johnson had 22 points and sophomore Brody Runkle scored 13 as the Cougars improved to 6-6 and 2-4 in the division.
“I’m really proud of the guys,” Smith said. “We started four sophomores tonight. Right now, we’re playing three juniors and two of them are coming off the bench. We’re as young as it’s going to get. I’m really proud of them. I think we’re starting to figure some things out. Games like this, win or lose, you learn from them.”
Tecumseh junior Chase Stafford had a game-high 28 points and senior Carson Staton scored 27 points, hitting seven 3-pointers as the Arrows fell to 6-7 and 1-5 in the division.
“We’ve got to guard better,” said Arrows coach Kyle Leathley. “We had too many defensive lapses. We have some games where we’re OK defensively and we have some games where we’re not and I thought that we struggled a little bit tonight.”
With the score tied at 20 after the first quarter, Kenton Ridge exploded for 18 points in the second quarter, taking a 38-29 lead at the half. They held the Arrows scoreless for more than four points in the period.
White scored 19 of his 23 points in the first half, hitting three 3-pointers and going 6-for-6 from the free throw line.
“Xavier completely stepped up for us tonight,” Smith said. “He’s really doing a much better job of knowing what’s a good shot and how much you can score by waiting on that good one.”
Johnson scored 20 of his 22 points in the second half. He converted a 3-point play with about four minutes remaining in the third quarter to give Kenton Ridge its biggest lead of the game at 49-31.
“He’s really coming on for us,” Smith said. “He finished under a lot of contact. He’s got a black eye from an elbow. He really finished. He had two or three 3-point plays at the end there that were just daggers to the other team when they started to come back at the end of the game.”
The Arrows cut the lead to nine points in the fourth quarter, but couldn’t get within striking distance. Staton hit a 3-pointer with 10 seconds remaining to cut the deficit to six points.
Tecumseh has won back-to-back games one time this season, beating Greenon and Piqua the last week of December. They host Northwestern on Tuesday night.
“The boys’ effort is really good,” Leathley said. “Every game it’s good. We’ve got to be more consistent defensively. That’s really kind of been one of our issues. It’s why we win then lose, win then lose, win then lose. We’ve got to figure that out through the year.”
The Cougars have won three of their last four games, including a victory at London on Dec. 3. The Kenton Trail Division is a dogfight every night, Smith said. He’s hoping the Cougars can continue to keep pace with the league leaders as they navigate through the division the second time around.
“We’re going to keep playing tough and we’re going to keep playing hard,” Smith said. “I told the guys that in this league — we beat the No. 1 team and this is our second win in the league — these teams are going to beat up on each other. London, JA, Urbana is playing really well. These teams are going to beat up on each other. We may as well win them all and see what it looks like at the end of the year.”
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