South Central Trojans make early statement, ride momentum to win over New London Wildcats
NEW LONDON - It didn’t take long for the South Central High School boys basketball team to make a statement.
Scoring the first nine points in the game against New London, South Central rolled to a 61-32 Firelands Conference win Friday night.
SC, now under the leadership of Brett Seidel, who retired as the Trojan coach last season, is now back in the fold after first-year SC coach Cory Durbin stepped aside a couple of weeks ago.
“This is my third game, and this is our game 10 and we’re 4-6 (overall, 2-4 in the FC),” Seidel said. “I missed the kids, I missed the games, I’m a competitor, I like to compete, so I missed it, and I’m an empty nester now. But I wouldn’t trade these kids for anything.”
For New London (0-5 FC, 1-9 overall) coach Randy Endlsey, he felt it was good for SC to have Seidel back, as the Trojans were fired up from the start.
“That’s kind of indicative of the team that’s playing, you know, in comes Seidel, I know he hasn’t been there all year but they’ll play hard for him,” Endlsey said. “He’s a good guy who’s got them playing hard.”
SC ran up a 9-0 start, then ended the first quarter with a 20-8 lead and NL was unable to catch up as the Trojans held a 36-18 advantage at the half.
Part of the reason for the quick start was the strong defensive play by SC, who pocketed 13 steals in the game and forced 30 turnovers on the Wildcats.
Six of those steals belonged to senior guard Isaac Blair, which helped him score a game-high 22 points.
“We came out ready to play and the last few games we have come out to play where we did a nice job with the ball movement to start the game,” Seidel said. “Turnovers turned into points for us tonight, and Isaac has that dynamic to get the ball in his hands, and some of those were getting the steals out front, and he’s really good at that. And he did a really nice job at both ends of getting people involved.”
Endsley again has a young squad to work with but he got good contributions from freshmen Garrett Carruthers (10 points) and Brody Sword (9 points), along with senior big man Connor Byrd (8 points).
“We dress four freshmen and three play quite a bit, we have a sophomore who usually starts but he’s on vacation right now, and he’s a good one as well, so we have a lot of good young kids coming back,” said Endsley, who also lauded the effort of junior Gage Carrol, who led the team with 11 rebounds. “He’s come a long way, he got very minimal experience last year, and worked hard this fall. And he’s a strong boy.
“And I thought we did a good job in the third quarter with our play at both ends, as they only out-scored us 8-6.”
Gunner Day added 11 points for SC, with Brandon Mitchell pitching in eight points and adding eight rebounds. Eric Sanders and Hayden Dobias each added six markers.
“We’ve gotten a lot of good play from a lot of players and that’s what they need to gain confidence,” Seidel noted. “It’s good to be back, like I said, I enjoy being around these kids, and they’ve been working hard as we’ve redone our system.”
This article originally appeared on Ashland Times Gazette: South Central Trojans make early statement, ride momentum to win over New London Wildcat
