by JOHN HOWLEY / sportingpumpkin.com
AMANDA — A fast start, and good ball pressure, helped Teays Valley grab a 72-38 win at Amanda-Clearcreek Friday night and stay unbeaten in the league.
Brody Fields had 10 of his 18 points in the first quarter for the Vikings. Along with four from Kole Nungester and three from Sam Miller, TV got out in front 17-10 six minutes in.
“Coming out of the locker room that was what we talked about — we had to get off to a good start. It didn’t have to be a quick start, just a solid start,” coach Brian Barnett said. “And we talked about sharing the basketball and we’re getting better at it. As we get better at it, we’ve got a lot of guys who can score.”
One of those guys is sophomore Kaden Purdon who scored the final seven points of the first quarter and then started the second with a three-pointer.
“It was great to get Kaden to see the ball go through the basket,” Barnett said. “He has been playing hard in practices for us and gets in a couple of games here and there and just hasn’t seen that success that he saw tonight. To have him see that ball go through the basket and him play as well as he did, I’m very proud of him and very pleased with his effort.”
The Vikings led 38-19 at the half and were up 60-32 after three periods.
“They are a very athletic, very skilled basketball team,” AC coach Jamie Justus said. “You’ve got Fields and (Kole) Nungester, that’s who kind of makes them go and they’ve got the bigs inside. Then it seemed like we keyed on them, and it opened things up for other guys and their other guys really stepped up and made big shots. That kind of redirected our whole defensive scheme.
“It seemed like whoever they put in the game came in and made shots when they needed them.”
Along with Fields’ 18, Nungester and Purdon each finished with 11 and Sam Miller had nine. Altogether, a dozen Vikings put points on the board.
Lane Stevens led the Aces with 11 points and Colton Westhoven had eight.
The Vikings benefited from their tough ball pressure which contributed to 16 AC turnovers.
“If we can apply ball pressure, we’re pretty good. If we can’t then things kind of go crazy,” Barnett said. “There were some lapses there in the first half that we talked about at halftime. We talked about it and corrected it in the second half.”
TV finished the night with a 43-30 rebounding advantage led by Purdon with seven and Miller with six. Westhoven led the Aces with eight.
Justus said his team is looking to execute better offensively to be in better control of the game.
“The energy has been great. Tonight, we had four quarters of great energy,” he said. “But we have a hard time getting that bucket. We need to get that big score to slow things down a little bit and we struggle with that at times.”
The Vikings (8-2, 6-0) have a tough non-league test Monday night when they play Bishop Hartley at Ohio Dominican University and then have Logan Elm in on Wednesday. The Aces (1-13, 0-6) head to Hamilton Township Tuesday.
Teays Valley 72, Amanda-Clearcreek 38
Teays Valley— Kole Nungester 5-0-11, Brody Fields 6-3-18, Luke Burgett 1-0-2, Owen Hoffhines 2-0-5, Cash Conrad 1-0-2, Kaden Purdon 3-3-11, Joao Abecasis 1-0-2, Lane Struckman 1-0-2, Gideon Dixon 2-0-4, Sam Miller 4-1-9, Jayden Morrison 1-0-3, Karter Kozlowski 1-1-3. Three-point goals — Nungester, Fields (3), Hoffhines, Purdon (2), Morrison. Total — 28-52 8-14 72.
Amanda-Clearcreek — Taylon Conrad 1-0-3, Carter Madison 2-0-6, Colton Westhoven 3-2-8, Nick Holland 2-0-4, Lane stevens 5-0-11, Brody Elder 3-0-6. Three-point goals — Conrad, Madison (2), Stevens. Total— 16-48 2-8 38.
Quarter scores 1 2 3 4 F
Teays Valley 24 14 22 12 72
Amanda-Clearcreek 10 9 13 6 38
