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Devils thwart Eagles

HANOVERTON–It went down to the final minute, but the Lisbon boys basketball team kept its league record flawless as they defeated United 52-46 on Friday.

This put the Blue Devils at 3-0 in the Eastern Ohio Athletic Conference and 6-1 overall.

The Eagles (3-5) held the Blue Devils to their lowest point total of the season. This was just the Blue Devils second game since December 15, so some rust could have played a factor in the scoring. Nevertheless, the Devils are now tied for first place in the league after Southern defeated Leetonia on Friday to move to 3-0 in the EOAC as well.

“We don’t like to look at it like that,” Lisbon senior guard Ryan McCullough said about first place. “We like to take it one a time. Every game, we start 0-0. We like to grind it out and that’s what tonight was. It was really a grind.”

“It’s a long, long season,” Lisbon coach Chris Huckshold said. “With three games in the league in, this should be December 20. There are 11 games left. That noise is so far down the road of what is going to happen. This year for sure, it is one game at a time.”

In the current sports realm, it can simply come down to who is playing.

“It’s who can navigate through everything, who doesn’t get quarantined and stuff like that,” Huckshold said. “It’s one game at a time. The league isn’t even a discussion or a thought right now.”

Ryan McCullough led Lisbon with 18 points and Blayne Brownfield added 11. Brownfield added nine rebounds and McCullough added four steals. For United, Keaton Baker had 17 points and Nate Miller had 14 points.

Lisbon has won three of their six games by 14 or more points, so the grind-it-out wins are important for the Blue Devils. Particularly, the young ones.

“It’s huge,” Huckshold said about the win. “We have two seniors who are somewhat battle tested and injured over there coaching up four freshman. We had four freshman on the floor at different times tonight. I just told the boys that I would rather win ugly then lose pretty.

“We had foul trouble, kids in situations they aren’t used to being in and we got through. The seniors made some shots and some free throws.”

United used their height and athleticism to make life hard for McCullough and Brownfield, but the duo still managed to account for half of the Blue Devils points.

“It’s one thing to go get it easy,” Huckshold said. “But basketball players, the good ones, they can get it when they are getting double-teamed, specialized defense, faceguarded and stuff like that. They both did tonight. They grinded through. They didn’t make all of their shots and they are beat up and scratched up but they got through it and got their points.”

Huckshold added “their teammates made some shots and they made the right passes and trusted their teammates.”

“Ryan Mccullough is a very good basketball player and he is hard to match up with because he is so fast,” United coach Jason Thompson said. “He can also shoot it and stop on a dime and elevate so we wanted to play normal defense on him and try to contain him as much as we can. I thought our best chance was trying to contain Brownfield and I thought we did that. We held him to 11. We tried to limit his shots and his touches and take away his ability inside. If he touches it inside, he’s got the knack to score.”

Thompson was complementary of the way the Blue Devils play and wanted the Eagles to emulate that.

“Lisbon is a very good team led by two seniors that really understand what they need to do and that is what we are trying to instill,” Thompson said. “Situational basketball and trying to understand what we need in certain situations and reinforcing that because that is something that is lacking right now.”

For Lisbon, the rest of the season is about one thing.

“One game at a time,” Huckshold said. “One game at a time. Right now, we are going to worry about Heartland. They got one of the best players in the county and we are going to see what we can do against them.”

Lisbon is at Heartland Christian on Monday.

United is at Valley Christian on Tuesday.

Game notes

• In jayvee action, United won 50-18. For United, Luke Courtney had 17 points and for Lisbon, Austin Dailey had seven points.

• East Palestine is also in the EOAC and they have yet to play.

LISBON: 8-16-14-14–52

UNITED: 10-14-10-12–46

LISBON SCORING: Ryan McCullough 7-2-18, Blayne Brownfield 3-5-11, Trevor Siefke 2-0-5, Hunter Sturgeon 4-0-9, Hunter Dailey 1-0-2, Tate Wallen 0-0-0, Austin Dailey 1-1-4, Logan Stauffer 1-0-3. TEAM TOTALS: 19-43, 8-12: 52.

UNITED SCORING: Keaton Baker 7-1-17, Nevin Hahlen 1-0-3, Grant Knight 0-0-0, Ward Kiko 4-2-10, Brutus Ogilvie 0-0-0, Steffen Jarrett 0-0-0, Nate Miller 6-2-14, Cody Cope 0-2-2. TEAM TOTALS: 18, 7-16: 46.

Three-point goals: Lisbon 6 (McCullough 2, Dailey, Stauffer, Siefke, Sturgeon), United 3 (Baker 2, Hahlen).

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