OLIVESBURG — It’s beginning to look a lot like “Swishmas” for the Crestview boys basketball team.
If fans aren’t getting enough with the Christmas lights up and down Ohio 96, all they need to do is pop into the high school gym and watch the Cougars light up the scoreboard.
Continuing yet another explosive start to the season, Crestview kicked off the defense of its Firelands Conference title Friday night with a 76-28 thrashing of visiting South Central.
The Cougars (4-0, 1-0 FC) shot a sizzling 65 percent from the field (32-of-49) and hit as many 3-pointers (seven) as the Trojans had 2-pointers in the contest.
The result was a 17th consecutive FC win, a 16th consecutive home win and four victories in eight days — all at home — to start what the squad hopes is another banner season.
“We like being at home,” Crestview head coach John Kurtz said. “Our student section’s been really good and we’ve had really good crowds. It’s been fun for the guys.”
The 76 points Friday against South Central (1-1, 0-1) actually were a season-low for the Cougars, who are averaging 85 per game.
When Crestview set the program record for wins last year (21-3), it scored more than 75 just three times.
The Cougars have done it in four straight games to open the season and Kurtz was pleased that it came on 21 assists Friday — a huge focus of the game plan for a team that spreads the ball all over the floor.
“If we get ramped up in transition we’re hard to guard,” Kurtz said. “The kids are really unselfish.”
“We were kind of shell-shocked,” admitted first-year South Central coach Dallas Yost. “It was a big difference between St. Pete’s last week (a 65-36 Trojan win) and Crestview this week.”
Despite Cougar forward Justice Thompson scoring 10 of his 14 points for the game within the first four minutes, South Central was within 13-8 after a 3-pointer from Gavin Olney midway through the first quarter.
But hope didn’t last long for the Trojans, who were outscored 37-6 the remainder of the first half, as putback machine Tyson Ringler netted 14 of his game-high 19 points in the second quarter.
The 6-foot-3 junior also had a game-best eight rebounds for the Cougars, who watched Jarek Ringler turn in six points, nine assists, six rebounds and four steals in an all-around effort.
Crestview had 11 steals in the game (four from Karter Goon) and Kurtz was happy to see his squad allow just 28 points for the contest — half as many as the Cougars had given up in their previous best defensive effort (79-56 over Fredericktown).
“Those first couple games, our kids I think knew they could score a lot of points and we kind of took our foot off the gas on the defensive end,” the coach said. “But we’ve had quite a few discussions about that the last couple days, so I think we were better tonight.”
South Central, coming off a 9-14 season (6-8 FC), starts two sophomores and had trouble matching Crestview’s length and athleticism. Junior Trey Knoll (10 points) and sophomore Bryan Chaffee (eight) both scored in all four quarters, but the visitors got just one basket from their bench.
“We’ve been putting the work in and it’s a process,” Yost said. “We’ve got a lot of young guys — only three letter winners back — but in five, six weeks when we play (Crestview again), we obviously hope to keep getting better and better.”
The Cougars allowed just four points in both the second and fourth quarters and watched Dylan Bruner (eight points, six rebounds, five assists) and Grayson Burgess (11 points, including a trio of 3-pointers) sink a variety of buckets.
The 35-point running clock already was ticking away at the start of the second half.
“They shot it really well from 3, and that makes it tough to guard when they’re dominating from the 3-point line and from the paint,” Yost said. “They made it tough on us to get in the paint.”
While the Trojans will host Western Reserve next Friday, the Cougars will be back in action Saturday at Colonel Crawford, followed by their first road FC game next Friday at Monroeville.
Kurtz said another league title — which would be just the second back-to-back FC crowns for the Cougars (also 1999 and 2000) — is obviously a goal, but there’s a long road ahead.
“Our kids know we want to win (the FC), but we don’t really discuss it,” he said. “There are so many games and there are some teams that have really good potential with kids back.”
