SETTING — Edison’s Bryce McAfoose sets up a play against Catholic Central Tuesday. (Andrew Grimm)

STEUBENVILLE — The Edison boys basketball team wanted to put a rough week behind on Tuesday when it made a visit to Catholic Central’s Mickey Barber Gymnasium.

Mission accomplished.

Thanks to a second quarter outburst and a dominate second half, Nate Moses’ Wildcats got back on track with a 66-32 blowout of the Crusaders to sweep the season series.

“Last week was a rough week,” Moses said. “We talked in the locker room (before the game) about this being a bounce back game, and we bounced back well. Hopefully, this springboards us for the rest of the season.

“After last week, our kids were down, our coaches were down. Sometimes you just need to step away from the basketball court for a few days. That’s what we did, and the weather helped with that. Sometimes it’s exactly what you need. We knew this was a huge game for us.”

The performance in the final three quarters is exactly what Moses has been waiting to see from his club.

“We know what this team is capable of,” he said. “We have shown signs of it throughout the year. This game proves it. We came out a little sluggish, but in the third quarter it looked like a completely different team. We have been fighting for consistency all year. It does get frustrating because we see the capability. It was nice to see them come together.”

After a tightly contested opening quarter, Edison (6-8) went on a 16-2 run — following Catholic Central (2-11) taking what ended up being its final lead of the game with a Dom Argentine 3-pointer on the first shot of the second quarter — to take over for good.

“We weren’t very good,” Central coach Mike Holmes said. “They took us out of what we wanted to do. I don’t think a physical game is a good thing for us, but we have to be able to play through that and handle it because some teams are physical. A lot of our focus and intensity was good. A lot of what they got in the first half was mostly off of us turning the basketball over, so our defense was pretty sound. We were running our spread pretty well.

“It’s disheartening to get a layup and miss it, and get another and miss it. If you get those, you can get some energy from that and can build on it, but (missing them) can be just as discouraging. To (Edison’s) credit, they just kept plugging away at us and, eventually, we just could not respond any longer and kind of got preoccupied with things that weren’t going well.”

Edison started the second half with an 18-2 run to pour it on and push the lead to 28 points by the end of the third quarter.

“I thought toward the end of the second quarter, and especially in the third quarter, we just picked it up on the defensive end,” Moses said. “That led us to some easy baskets. We got things rolling, and I thought we played a real good, unselfish third quarter to put the game away.

“The key to this game was the defensive end. Once we got a couple of stops and got flowing, the confidence starts going and shots start falling. Basketball is a momentum game and, once we got it, it was hard to stop us.”

The Wildcats, as they usually do when things are going well, got balanced scoring, led by Isaac Schmitz’s 15-point performance. Alec McBane followed close behind with 13 points, while Zac Easter also hit double figures with 11 points. Anthony Sinicropi had eight points.

“Alec is probably one of the hardest working kids that I have seen,” Moses said. “He had a real nice game tonight. I’m really happy for Isaac Schmitz as well. He came out in the third quarter and played really well.”

The Crusaders were led by nine points and 10 rebounds from Argentine, also getting seven points from Mike Rook off the bench and six points from Luca Connor.

Both teams are back in action Friday. Edison hosts Harrison Central, while Catholic Central travels to Bellaire.

GAME NOTES

¯ Edison won a close jayvee game, 37-36, on a late shot. The Wildcats were led by 16 points from Jayden Sanders. The Crusaders got 15 points from Toby Lefnesky.

(Grimm can be reached at agrimm@heraldstaronline.com)

Edison 66, Catholic Central 32

Edison 12-19-18-17 — 66

Catholic Central 10-7-4-11 –32

EDISON (6-8): Sinicropi 2 1-3 8; Robinson 1 0-0 2; Easter 3 3-4 11; McAfoose 2 1-2 5; Schmitz 6 2-4 15; Scott 0 0-2 0; Kinney 1 1-2 3; Shrieve 0 0-2 0; Sanders 0 1-2 1; Zastudil 0 0-1 0; McBane 6 0-0 13; Pugh 3 0-0 8. TOTALS: 25 9-22 66.

CATHOLIC CENTRAL (2-11): Connor 2 2-2 6; J. Rook 2 0-0 4; Gorman 1 0-0 2; Carapellotti 1 2-5 4; Argentine 2 4-4 9; M. Rook 2 2-2 7; Hough 0 0-2 0; Rhode 0 0-0 0; Asai 0 0-0 0; Lefnesky 0 0-0 0; Anderson 0 0-0 0. TOTALS: 10 10-15 32.

3-POINT GOALS: Edison 5 (Pugh 2, McBane, Schmitz, Sinicropi); Catholic Central 2 (Argentine, M. Rook). ASSISTS: Edsion 15 (Schmitz 5); Catholic Central 6 (Gorman 2). REBOUNDS: Edison 25 (Kinney 6); Catholic Central 27 (Argentine 10). TURNOVERS: Edison 12; Catholic Central 24.