Circleville 54, Amanda-Clearcreek 33
CARROLL — Circleville’s defense clamped down on Bloom-Carroll to turn a four-point halftime advantage into a 21-point win – 54-33- Friday night.
“Defensively as a program, that’s been since day one what we’ve tried to focus on,” Circleville coach Evan Callihan said. “And we knew coming over on the road that coming to Bloom-Carroll — all you have to do is look up at their basketball banners up there for the tradition and the excellence that they have with their basketball program and all sports, really. So, we knew it was going to be a challenge coming over here.
“We were really proud of the way our guys defended in that second half.”
Leading 24-20 to start the third, the Tigers had the advantage up to 32-20 before the Bulldogs scored. By the end of the quarter, Circleville was up 43-27 thanks, in part, to forcing five BC turnovers.
BC scored the first basket of the fourth, but Circleville scored 11 straight to put the game out of reach.
While Circleville was causing turnovers in the second half, some turnovers of their own kept the game closer than it needed to be in the first.
After a steal and a layup from Kole Nungester, Circleville was up 21-13 in the second quarter with five minutes to go. But a handful of Tiger turnovers allowed the Bulldogs to close to within a point before Nungester hit a three in the closing seconds to make it 24-20.
“That’s what we talked about at halftime, we just got kind of sloppy,” Callihan said. “ We’ve been trying to play a little bit faster. But, you know, we always say as coaches playing fast doesn’t mean we’re playing out of control. And I felt like we played kind of out of control there a little bit, where we just tried to squeeze some passes in and just got a little bit sloppy.”
CHS cleaned that up in the second half and only had one more turnover for the game and that didn’t come until the final two minutes.
“We challenged them like, ‘hey, if you guys want to win this game on the road, we can’t give just give away possessions,’” Callihan said.
Riley Jenkins led the Tigers with 14 points and nine rebounds.
“He’s physical. He puts a lot of time in. I mean, he’s someone in the off-season that’s in the gym two or three hours on his own. He’s someone that stays after practice, and you can see it just with how he plays,” Callihan said. “Most people when they see him think of his offense, but he has come so far defensively. We usually put him on other team’s best post player. I thought that he did a great job defending inside for us tonight.”
Nungester put in 13 points and grabbed seven rebounds.
“As a point guard, (Nungester) gets a lot of rebounds and he added several steals tonight, too,” Callihan said.
Circleville finished with a 30-19 rebounding edge and gave up only three offensive boards.
“It’s a total, total team effort on the defensive end that we try to pride ourselves on. And I think that was the difference for us tonight,” Callihan said.
With the win, Circleville (11-2) sits atop the MSL Buckeye standings with Fairfield Union (8-2) as they both have 5-1 league marks. BC (7-6) is in second at 4-2.
The Tigers head to Sheridan (9-4) Wednesday.
Circleville 54, Bloom-Carroll 33
Circleville — Kole Nungester 5-2-13, Glavine Bigam 4-0-9, Jack Kline 3-3-10, Riley Jenkins 14, Ed Kirk 4-0-8. Three-point goals — Nungester, Bigam, Kline, Jenkins (2). Totals — 22-46 5-9 54.
Bloom-Carroll — Lucas Hogue 4-0-11, Caiden Schooley 1-0-3, Caleb Hinkle 5-0-10, Jayven Griffith 1-4-7, Brady Petty 1-0-2. Three-point goals — Hogue (3), Schooley, Griffith. Totals — 12-34 4-6 33.
Quarter scores 1 2 3 4 F
Circleville 17 7 19 11 54
Bloom-Carroll 11 9 7 6 33
Teays Valley 48, Logan 34
LOGAN — Teays Valley improved to 8-5 and 5-2 in OCC play with a 48-34 win at Logan Friday.
Areyana Karshner and Tessa Horsley each had 11 to lead the Vikings. Cami Robins had 10 and Addi Helwagen added eight.
The Vikings head to Lancaster Tuesday.