Circleville Tops Bloom-Carroll 54-33; Tigers and Fairfield Union Sit Atop the MSL Buckeye
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Before the opening tip, both head coaches had hopes of controlling the tempo as part of their game plans.
In the photo: Circleville’s Ed Kirk gets a put back off of a miss under the Tigers’ basket.
That appeared to play into the favor of the Tigers who built a 21-13 lead, but in the closing moments of the first half, Bloom-Carroll used a 7-0 run to close the gap to 21-20.
Shortly thereafter, Circleville’s Kole Nungester dropped in a three-point for a four-point edge at the buzzer for the break at halftime.
“It was a good feeling” said Nungester after the game “We knew they were gonna throw a punch, and they did going into halftime, but I thought hitting that there definitely gave us some momentum back a little bit and I thought carried us over into the second half and never looked back from there.”
Out the locker room, the Tigers went on a tear, scoring the first 8-points of the third period and before the Bulldogs could turn their heads, Circleville was back up top at 32-20.
“We just couldn’t extend the lead there in the first half” said Evan Callihan. “They kept chipping away and I thought Kole’s three at the end of the first was big… We challenged our guys the first four minutes of the quarter would tell us how the rest of the game would go. I’m proud of our guys. Proud of how they defended tonight. Proud of their poise.”
In the photo: Circleville’s Riley Jenkins drops in two of his game leading 14-points.
Lucas Hogue knocked down a shot from beyond the arc to cut the Tigers’ lead to nine, but Circleville closed out the third quarter outscoring Bloom-Carroll 11-2 to widen the margin to 43-27.
Riley Jenkins led all scorers with 14-points, ahead of Nungester’s 13 and Jack Kline’s 10. Glavine Bigam and Ed Kirk combined for the other 17-points, propelling Circleville to their 11th win on the season.
“They responded to our challenge” said Callihan. “We wanted to try to get the ball inside, thought we got Riley Jenkins some looks in there. He had a big game. And finally getting to Kole inside. It’s tough. He gets the best player guarding him every game and Kole handles it with poise. Glavine Bigam, stepped up huge for us tonight. He’s someone that continues to progress for us. Jack Kline, we ask a lot out of him defensively. He was in double figures. Our scoring was balanced. It was a total team effort.”
The Bulldogs were paced by Hogue’s 11-points and 10 added by Caleb Hinkle.
Bloom-Carroll (4-2/7-6) gets back to action Tuesday at New Lexington.
The Tigers aren’t back on the hardwood until Wednesday for a road game at Sheridan (9-4). The Generals are coming off a 54-41 win at Tri-Valley Friday.
The win pulled Circleville into a tie with Fairfield Union in first place of the Mid State League Buckeye Division at 5-1 apiece. The Falcons were off Friday. The two clubs won’t face each other until February 7th in Rushville. That has Nungester pumped. “First place. Let’s go. A lot of big games ahead though. Not done yet.”
