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Martins Ferry boys catch fire against Harrison Central

MARTINS FERRY — After a sluggish start in its home opener, Martins Ferry caught fire toward the end of the first quarter, carried it over to the second and rallied past Harrison Central, 63-55, in boys high school basketball action inside Tolbert Gymnasium Tuesday night high atop the Purple City.

With his team’s start not to his liking, youthful Martins Ferry coach Derek Edwards called a 30-second timeout just 1:46 into the Buckeye 8 contest.

“We started off very slow,” Edwards said. “We didn’t start off very well. We turned the ball over I believe seven or eight times in the first quarter that I counted. I’ve got to look at the stat sheet, but we didn’t start off too hot.

“On the other hand, give Harrison Central credit. They hit some very difficult shots in that first quarter. Coach (Justin) Clifford has those guys playing hard. That’s a difficult matchup for us.”

The Huskies (1-1) led 16-10 after one quarter but couldn’t find their shooting touch in the middle two quarters. They went a combined 6 for 30 from the floor while having dry spells of 5:23 in the second quarter and 5:21 in the third.

“When we’re shooting it and it’s going in, it’s pretty and everybody’s happy,” Clifford said, “but when it doesn’t (go in), we’ve got to find another alternative. We haven’t done that in our scrimmages and we haven’t done it now, so give them credit because they took us out of some things.

“We did things tonight that we haven’t done for two months.

“That’s our M-O … defense,” Edwards said of the Huskies’ failure to score. “That’s who we are. That’s who we want to be. We want to be able to take team’s strengths away from them and make it hard on them. If they score, we want to make it hard for them. We want to make them earn those points. All seven guys that played tonight did a heckuva job because Harrison Central has a lot of firepower.

“We weathered their storm and kind of climbed back into the game there at the end of the first quarter and settled ourselves down. The execution from there, offensively, blew me away tonight.”

The Purple Riders (2-0) shot a blistering 59 percent for the game, which included a red-hot 80 percent (8 of 10) in the second quarter when they made their move.

Pugh netted eight of his game-high 24 in the decisive quarter when the Purple used a 24-10 scoring advantage to build a 34-26 lead at the half.

Harrison Central held a 23-17 lead with 5:55 left in the first half. The Huskies wouldn’t score again until a mere 32 seconds remained in the half.

Dasyn Hores buried a 3-pointer from the right corner to put the Purple Riders ahead to stay at 24-23 It was part of a 17-3 run to end the half.

With its decisive height advantage in Pugh (6-foot-6) and Smith (6-foot-6), Martins Ferry held a 41-30 margin off the glass. Pugh grabbed game honors with a dozen. Smith finished with eight boards to go along with 15 points. Hores also had 15.

“Shame on us if we don’t control the inside,” Edwards said. “Those guys aren’t playing hard enough if we aren’t. DeAndre (Pugh) and Smitty (Logan Smith) did control the game on the inside, but our guards did a great job in the backcourt getting the ball up the floor and to our players.

“I can’t say enough about Reuben Hilson. What an effort from him. He puts in so much time. He’s outside dribbling the basketball on the sidewalk in the snow. He is one of our guys. He’s our type of player and he brought it tonight.”

The Purple Riders were guilty of 22 turnovers. Harrison Central had half that many.

Kobe Mitchell led the Huskies with 22 points. Gavin Muckle added 12. They finished 18 for 59 from the floor.

Martins Ferry 63, Harrison Central 55

Harrison Central 16-10-10-19 — 55

Martins Ferry 10-24-13-16 — 63

HARRISON CENTRAL (1-1): Mitchell 8 4-8 22; Stine 2 3-5 7; Dalton 2 2-2 6; Taylor 1 2-2 5; Muckle 4 2-4 12; McAfee 0 0-0 0; West 0 0-0 0; Capers 1 0-0 3; Totals: 18-59 13-21 55. MARTINS FERRY (2-0): Smith 6 3-4 15; Olson 1 3-4 5; Hores 6 2-2 15; Shrodes 0 0-1 0; Pugh 9 6-8 24; Hilson 1 2-4 4; Buksa 0 0-0 0; Totals: 23-39 15-21 63

3-POINT GOALS: Harrison Central 6 (Mitchell 2, Muckle 2, Taylor, Capers); Martins Ferry 1 (Hores).

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