by JACOB MEREDITH / sportingpumpkin.com
OBETZ — Circleville was unable to keep pace with Hamilton Township and fell 78-68 to the Rangers in this Mid-State League Buckeye Division tilt.
The game was broken open by Hamilton’s Jovon McBride with a three followed by two free throws by Josh Woods to put the Rangers up 5-0 early. The game’s first baskets for Circleville were a layup from Slater Search, a jumper from Briley Cramer and an Ed Kirk bucket, all in succession. A Ranger Hamidou Diallo bucket would then lead to a Tiger timeout.
After the timeout, Circleville’s Drew Thornsley scored and Hamilton followed with a McBride dunk and a Diallo three to bring about yet another Tiger timeout. Circleville would hit a three following the pause answered by scores from Woods and McBride for Hamilton to put them up by five. A Cramer jumper would cut it to three but yet another McBride basket made the Ranger lead five with the score 18-13 in favor of Hamilton Township at the end of the first quarter.
“McBride is an incredible athlete, and it is a lot easier said than done trying to contain him. That was one of our main focuses to keep the ball out of his hands and we didn’t do a great job of that, not saying our guys didn’t work hard, he is just really difficult to contain,” CHS Coach Cody Carpenter said.
Search drew a foul and made both free throws to make Rangers’ lead three to begin the second period. Hamilton and Circleville traded layups from Woods and Cramer and then went back-to-back threes from HT’s Brad Butcher and CHS’ Cramer. McBride added a driving layup to make the Ranger lead five, then Circleville’s Preston Hulse downed a three to cut it to two points. Hamilton then went on an 8-0 run to be silenced by an Ed Kirk dunk — but he was hit with a technical foul call for hanging on the rim. Josh Woods sank both of the free throws that followed and HT scored nine straight points to end the quarter and the lone Tiger basket was an Ed Kirk layup to take the score 44-29 Rangers at halftime.
“Our message at the half was a pretty heated conversation because I don’t feel we did a great job stopping their penetration, too many easy buckets and we weren’t boxing them out and we were giving them second chance opportunities, but I feel like we did a good job getting into our press but our defensive really put us in a hole,” Carpenter said.
Circleville commenced after the half with a Kirk bucket and a Cramer layup. HT got a Nick Tuff score to be answered by a Search drive to cut the deficit to 11. Cramer would then take the ball down court to draw a foul and drop one of two free throws. McBride would take a pass from teammate Tuff and drop a score for the Rangers — McBride led the Rangers with 26 points. Then two Diallo layups shot the Rangers ahead by 14. The Tigers responded with a layup by their leading scorer on the night — Cramer — who had 16 to end the drought. Hamilton ended the quarter with a McBride scoop and Circleville collected a Search and Cramer tally to make the score 54-44 going into the final quarter.
The fourth was started with a Diallo score followed by a Search bucket which led to a Ranger timeout with 4:27 to go in the quarter. Circleville would collect six threes in the fourth (Hulse and Kiline both had two, Thornsley and Jenkins each had one). The Tigers matched the Rangers with 24 points in the period with HT would go 18-25 from the charity stripe in the quarter to stop the Tigers’ comeback attempt and win 78-68.
Hamilton Township 78, Circleville 68
Circleville — Preston Hulse 3-0-9, Drew Thornsley 3-0-7, Briley Cramer 7-1-16, Jack Kline 3-0-8, Kiser Cassidy 1-0-2, Slater Search 3-4-10, Riley Jenkins 2-0-6, Ed Kirk 5-0-10. Three-point goals — Hulse (3), Thornsley, Cramer, Kline (2), Jenkins (2). Total — 27-5-68.
Hamilton Township — Nick Tuft 3-1-7, Brad McCarty 4-0-10, Josh Woods 4-7-16, Jovan McBride 8-9-26, Roberts 0-3-3, Hamidou Diallo 6-3-16. Three-point goals — McCarty (2), Woods, McBride, Diallo. Total — 25-23-78.
Quarter scores 1 2 3 4 F
Circleville 13 16 15 24 68
Hamilton Twp 18 26 10 24 78
