LEXINGTON — Scott Hamilton doesn’t call a lot of timeouts during a basketball game.
So when the Lexington coach stopped the game three minutes into the fourth quarter on Friday night against Ashland, suffice to say he got his team’s attention.
Watching a 19-point lead begin to evaporate in just over three minutes will trigger such a reaction.
His words in the huddle, coming after an 11-0 Arrows’ run to open the period, did the trick as the Minutemen stopped the bleeding enroute to a 71-54 Ohio Cardinal Conference home win.
“I thought we were missing opportunities in the way that they were defending us,” said Hamilton, now 211-93 in his 13th season. “I thought we were settling for some shots.
“When the ball got to the wing, they were really overplaying the ball. They were putting four guys on that side and we weren’t getting a lot of reversals and opening up the floor.
“Then I thought when we were going to the rim a couple of times, we just didn’t finish. We were either expecting contact … expecting someone to attempt to block it,” said Hamilton, the winningest coach in school history.
“We were going in soft and one of the things I told the guys is that when you go in there and you try to avoid a block or you try to avoid (contact), the officials aren’t going to give you anything, even if you do get bumped.
“You’ve got to go in there strong and confident and plan to go to the free throw line. I just wanted to give our guys a little bit of confidence that we were still looking to attack. We weren’t going to settle.”
The win improved Lexington to 9-1 overall and 5-1 in the OCC, tied for first in the conference loss column with Mansfield Senior (6-1, 4-1) and Wooster (6-3, 4-1) after the Tygers toppled the Generals on Friday night, 61-45.
Ashland slipped to 5-4 and 2-3.
‘What I saw was just a lack of confidence’
The pep talk worked as Lexington — which missed its first six shots of the fourth quarter –hit five of its last seven field goal attempts and added 4-of-5 free throws to push the final margin back to 17.
“I’m not normally a guy to call a lot of timeouts, because I feel fairly confident of what we’ve covered in practice. My attitude has always been, ‘What I’m going to tell the guys is what I’ve been telling them for the last four days.’ At some point, they’ve got to figure it out out on the floor.
“But what I saw (Friday night) was just a lack of confidence. We just had to make sure that we were doing things the right way and being confident in what we were doing,” Hamilton said.
Ashland coach Jason Hess said said there wasn’t really any magic to how his Arrows started the final period quickly after being outscored 22-9 in the third quarter as Lexington built a 55-36 edge.
“We got some stops. We were aggressive going to the basket, which even though we weren’t necessarily finishing at the basket, it created some opportunities to get some 3-point opportunities to be able to make some shots,” Hess said.
“But the big thing was we got stops and rebounds. I think that was the only stretch in the game where we weren’t giving up second and third chances for them and we also didn’t turn the ball over,” he said.
Ashland was sparked by junior guard Paxon Ediger’s 26 points, the only Arrow in double figures, connecting on 10-of-27 shots.
Continuing to win without Fogle
As the 22-game regular season nears its midway mark, Lexington has continued to find ways to win without 6-foot-5 forward Brayden Fogle, who suffered a broken wrist in the final football game of the season.
With four players in double figures on Friday night, including 20 from junior guard Seven Allen, the Minutemen continue to overcome the on-court absence of last year’s OCC Player of the Year. Fogle averaged 14.5 points and 8.2 rebounds per game last year while shooting 62 percent from the field.
His return date may still be a couple of weeks away, according to Hamilton.
It’s tested a team that went 22-3 last year, even one that returned four starters and seven lettermen.
“We challenged them at the beginning of the season. When we found out that it was official that he was going to have to have surgery, my comments to the guys were I’ve got to fill 25, 26 minutes a night.
“Who’s going to step up? How are we going to do it? Is it going to be one guy? Is it going to be by committee? Really what happened was I had a number of guys say, ‘I’ll do my part,'” Hamilton said.
Senior guard Jakob Legron had 12 points for Lexington and senior guard Gavin Husty added 11. Junior forward Joe Caudill finished with 10.
Hess said Lexington has adjusted to life without its first-team All-Ohio performer.
“They’ve got multiple guys that are very capable and they played all year without him,” Hess said.
“So they’re very adjusted at this point in the season to playing without him. As you saw tonight, especially in the third quarter, they got hot shooting the ball from the 3-point line and multiple guys were able to make shots.”
Up next
Both teams are back in action Saturday with non-league games.
Lexington travels to Sandusky (6-4) to take on a Blue Streaks team that has won three straight games, including a 72-69 win Friday night at home against Tiffin Columbian.
Ashland returns to Richland County to take on Ontario (2-7) in another non-league game. The Warriors, idle on Friday night, fell to Shelby on Thursday, 68-59.
