Elizabeth Clark | News Journal
Elizabeth Clark | News Journal
Elizabeth Clark | News Journal
Elizabeth Clark | News Journal
Elizabeth Clark | News Journal
Elizabeth Clark | News Journal
BLANCHESTER — The Clinton-Massie Falcons defeated Blanchester 68-57 Fridday to end a 5-game skid.
The 68 points is a season high total for the Falcons.
The leading scorer for CM was Zander Mills with 17. Tristen Trampler trailed with 14.
Blanchester was led by Kaden Cromer with 19.
“It’s great when we move, when we pass the ball around. That was our lowest turnover game of the season and it showed. We made good passes to teammates to get the shots we want to, the shots we work on every day in practice,” said CM head coach Dustin Eads.
After multiple sloppy possessions early on from both teams, Mills opened the scoring by knocking one down from deep. On the next possession, Brayden Behymer evened it back up and we were off.
The high scoring didn’t last long as the game quickly turned into a defensive slugfest with the two teams scoring a combined 9 points to end the quarter with CM sophomore Ty Martin fighting through tough defense down low for the final bucket of the first quarter. The Falcons held a narrow 10-7 lead.
In the second, the shootout began. The teams traded three after three and shot after shot, leading to Blanchester taking a 19-18 lead before the Falcons closed it out with a 10-3 run on a big shot from Mills who had multiple defenders in the area to make it a 28-22 Falcon lead at half.
“We struggle against ball pressure and we’ve been working really hard on that. We went through a phase tonight where we couldn’t handle the ball pressure and gave them transition points,” said Blanchester head coach Mike Malott when asked about what went wrong on the Falcons run.
Out of the break, Blanchester kept up with the Falcons until a huge block from Cale Wilson turned into a Trampler bucket on the other end that got the Falcons fans jumping. On the ensuing possession after a controversial no call on a potential backcourt violation, Kaden Cromer put it in from under the basket, but the Falcons were unphased proceeding to rattle off 12 unanswered points. When the run was finally broken, the Falcons found themselves up 46-28.
At the end of the third, the Falcons led 55-42, and the lead was just too much for Blanchester to overcome with the Falcons taking it by 11.
For the Wildcats it’ll be back to the drawing board as they look to end their now 7-game losing streak against Hillsboro Jan. 3.
“We moved the ball better tonight and we have to continue to do that so we can get better shots and some of those will hopefully start going in,” said Malott.
For the Falcons, they’ll look to parlay this into success down the line. They’ll face defending American Division champion Goshen on Jan. 3.
“The best thing about these guys is they’re mentally tough. The 5-game stretch has obviously been irritating, but they haven’t looked down. This is a great thing to continue to build on in practice, build the enthusiasm with wins like this, these guys deserve to win by how hard they work,” said Eads.
In the junior varsity game, Blanchester led 10-3 after one quarter but the Falcons stormed back to win 36-21.
Wyatt Scott had 13 points to lead Clinton-Massie (4-4) in scoring.
Cobe Euton had eight points and Easton Vinup scored seven. Hayden Meeker added four. Cash Burton and Carter Fouch scored two points each.
SUMMARY
Dec. 27, 2024
@ Blanchester High School
Clinton-Massie 68, Blanchester 57
CM^10^18^27^13^^68
B^7^15^20^15^^57
(68) CLINTON-MASSIE (fg-3fg-ft-tp) McCoy 0-0-2-2, Dillion 3-0-0-6, Wilson 4-0-3-11, Mills 1-5-0-17, Janis 6-0-0-12, Trampler 6-0-2-14, Martin 3-0-0-6, TOTALS 23-5-7-68
(57) BLANCHESTER (fg-3fg-ft-tp) Johnson 0-2-0-6, Basham 1-1-0-5, Behymer 2-2-0-10, Burress 0-1-0-3, Vogel 2-0-5-9, Cromer 8-0-3-19, Short 1-1-0-5, TOTALS 14-7-8-57
