STRONG TO THE HOOP — Oak Glen’s Chase Hartung takes the ball to the basket against Catholic Central on Tuesday inside the Mickey Barber Gymnasium. - Andrew Grimm

The veteran coach wanted to see his unit take advantage of that with a fast start, and it did.

Oak Glen opened the game on a 22-2 run and never looked back, putting together a 59-30 victory over the Crusaders inside the Mickey Barber Gymnasium.

“They’re shorthanded tonight and that kind of hurt them, so we just wanted to take care of ourselves and play our game,” Everly said. “We shared the ball, executed and played good defense.

“Playing a team that’s young, you want to get on them early and we were able to do that.”

Catholic Central’s Luke Bryan shoots past defense from Oak Glen’s Brenden Ates and Jacob Everett. - Andrew Grimm

The Golden Bears led 12-2 after one quarter and netted the first 10 of the second to open the big lead, ultimately holding a 26-6 advantage at the halftime break.

The Crusaders put together a much better second half, but the big hole was too steep to climb.

“The early hole was tough,” Central head coach Don Ogden said. “We’re playing a good Oak Glen team, they’re well coached and have a lot of experience, a lot of guys that played last year. Give them credit.

“Eventually it’s going to click for us. We’re going to keep on plugging. I told the guys not to give up on themselves. Some shots didn’t fall, there are some things we can look at, but there were some improvements we can look at, too.”

The Crusaders were without leading scorer Rahim Mitchell, but Ogden was not ready to make that an excuse.

Oak Glen’s Mason Kell jumps up for a layup past Central’s Eli Krivoniak and Michael Fabbro. - Andrew Grimm

“It does hurt, but we never use that as an excuse,” Ogden said of being shorthanded. “We’re a team and when someone is not playing, someone else has to pick up that slack. We as coaches have to try and make adjustments to fit the team that’s on the court.”

For the Bears, who are now off to a 6-2 start, 12 different players scored in the victory, led by 16 points from Noah Willey and 12 from Chase Hartung.

“It’s a pretty good start,” Everly said. “Right now its a little bit of everyone contributing. We have 13 guys and they all can play, we don’t have a super star, but we don’t have anyone that doesn’t deserve to be there either. They all practice hard, play hard, get after it and all of them deserve varsity minutes. Sometimes it’s hard to find them all minutes, as coach that’s one of the harder things I have to do is make sure all of them are getting in and getting a piece of the action. It’s a fun group for sure.

“We’re about to get into the tough part of our schedule so we still have work to do.”

Central was led by seven from Kolbe Krupp and six each from Michael Fabbro and Luke Bryan.

LETTING IT GO — Catholic Central’s Robbie Cherepko lets a shot go between Oak Glen defenders Noah Willey and Chase Hartung. - Andrew Grimm

“Our guys did keep playing hard in the second half,” Ogden said. “Our theme right now is effort. We played with energy, sometimes it was undisciplined or misdirected, but I can live with that as a coach. There are some things we need to work on that seem to be nagging throughout the season so far we need to correct.”

UP NEXT

Oak Glen: Hosts rival East Liverpool on Saturday night in the battle of the bridge.

Catholic Central: Has another tough game on the road Friday at 10-1 Caldwell, who is ranked No. 6 in the state in Division VI by MaxPreps.

Oak Glen 59, Catholic Central 30

OG 12-14-13-20 — 59

CC 2-4-10-14 — 30

OAK GLEN (6-2): Hartung 6 0-1 12; Weekley 1 0-0 2; Willey 5 6-6 16; Geisse 1 2-2 4; Kell 2 0-0 4; Knisely 1 0-0 3; Hissam 2 0-0 6; Evans 1 0-0 2; Hebrock 1 0-0 2; Dawson 1 0-0 3; Dittman 0 0-0 0; Everett 1 0-0 2; Ates 1 0-0 3. TOTALS: 23, 8-9; 59.

CATHOLIC CENTRAL (5-8): Fabbro 1 4-4 6; E. Krivoniak 0 0-0 0; Krupp 3 0-0 7; A. Hough 2 0-0 4; Cherepko 2 1-2 5; Bryan 3 0-0 6; J. Hough 0 0-0 0; Rook 0 0-0 0; King 0 0-0 0; Fink 1 0-0 2; Hoover 0 0-0 0; D. Krivoniak 0 0-0 0. TOTALS: 12, 5-6; 30.

3-POINTERS: Oak Glen 5 (Hissam 2, Knisely, Dawson, Ates); Catholic Central 1 (Krupp).