Unioto 72, Circleville 52
CIRCLEVILLE — Unioto grabbed an early lead, and Circleville was unable to bounce back as the Shermans went home with a 72-52 win Monday night.
Unioto scored the first nine points of the contest, led 13-2 and finished the first quarter up 15-6.
“It goes back to the way we start. I thought we got out to a slow start. We got down 13-2 and then we’re chasing,” Circleville coach Evan Callihan said. “It’s a team that we really wanted to try to mix up zone in and when you’re down 10, 15 points you can’t ever get in a zone.”
An evenly played second period had it 33-25 in favor of Unioto at the half.
Circleville scored first in the second half but 14 of the next 17 points were scored by the Shermans and the third period came to an end with a 55-37 Sherman edge.
After hitting nine of their 11 shots in the third quarter, the Shermans hit five of their first six shots to start the fourth as they extended their lead to 66-43.
The Tigers had 13 turnovers in the game and Unioto used those to add 14 points to their score.
“Their speed killed us down the floor,” Callihan said.
The Sherman that hurt the Tigers the most was Caden Cutright who had a game-high 30 points.
“(Cutright) was someone we were trying to stay close to but when we lose him in transition, he was hard to find,” Callihan said.
Blake Hoops added 13 for Unioto and Blake Fitch had 10.
Ed Kirk led Circleville with 17, Kole Nungester had 13 and Riley Jenkins had 11.
Kirk had eight rebounds to lead the Tigers as they ended with a 28-26 advantage on the boards. Fourteen of those rebounds were on the offensive end as the Tigers had their issues finishing around the basket.
“We’ve got to be stronger,” Callihan said. “We’re doing a better job of going in and attacking it, but we’ve got to be stronger.”
Circleville was 17-55 from the field (31 percent) while Unioto finished 29-46 (63 percent).
After a bit of time off for Christmas, the Tigers return to action with two big county games as part of the inaugural Brad Morris Classic. They’ll play Westfall at Westfall Friday at 7:30. They match up with Teays Valley Saturday at 3 at Logan Elm.
“No one is going to sit around feel sorry for us. I know Westfall, this is a game they circle every year and, Teays Valley, we only get one chance to play them this year,” Callihan said. “Those two teams will be ready to play us, and we’ve got a lot of work to do.”
Unioto 72, Circleville 52
Unioto — Isaac Coy 1-0-2, Blake Hoops 5-2-13, KB Perkins 3-2-8, Blake Fitch 5-0-10, Jack Welch 1-2-5, Caden Cutright 12-2-30, Jaxon Zickafoose 2-0-4. Three-point goals — Hoops, Welch, Cutright (4). Total — 29-46 8-10 72.
Circleville — Kole Nungester 5-2-13, Jack Kline 0-1-1, Blain Fowler 3-0-7, Kiser Cassidy 1-03, Riley Jenkins 4-0-11, Ed Kirk 4-9-17. Three-point goals — Nungester, Fowler, Cassidy, Jenkins (3). Total — 17-55 12-16 52.
Quarter scores 1 2 3 4 F
Unioto 15 18 22 15 72
Circleville 6 19 12 15 52
Logan Elm 57, Zane Trace 48
KINNIKINNICK —After a big start, Logan Elm kept host Zane Trace at bay to grab a 57-48 non-league win Monday.
The Braves had a big first quarter as they scored the first 10 points of the night and led 22-4 at the end of the period.
The Pioneers got their offense on track in the second quarter and cut a few points off the difference to finish the half with LE on top 37-25.
The Pioneers had closed to 48-42 after three periods and made it a four-point game a minute into the fourth, but that was as close as the Braves let them get.
Kiki Ingram led all scorers in putting in 23 for the Braves. Kimmy Petty had 12, Maggie Wilson and Molly Miller each put in six, Gillian Savage had five, Maddie Adkins three and Maleah Gardner two.
The Braves next play Teays Valley at 3 p.m. Friday at Westfall as part of the Brad Morris Holiday Classic.
Quarter scores 1 2 3 4 F
Logan Elm 22 15 11 9 57
Zane Trace 4 21 17 6 48