ASHLAND — Duke Reese spoiled Senior Night at Arrow Arena.
Mansfield Senior’s defensive-minded forward, Reese scored a career-high 17 points and the Tygers came away with a 70-61 win over Ashland on Friday.
“My teammates set me up with a lot of good passes and I was able to finish,” said Reese, who was 8-for-10 from the field, swiped a game-high eight rebounds and blocked three shots. “Me and Kyevi (Roane) have been staying after practice and getting shots up and that has helped.”
Senior High (13-7 overall, 10-3 in the Ohio Cardinal Conference) trailed 29-28 early in the third quarter when Reese caught fire. He scored off a Ja’Ontay O’Bryant assist less than a minute into the period to give the Tygers a 30-29 lead, then scored seven of the Tygers’ final nine points in the period for a 47-42 lead after three.
“We’ve been waiting for a game like that out of Duke,” Senior High coach Marquis Sykes said. “He made some big-time plays for us. He’s been a defensive specialist for us this year, but tonight he got it done at the offensive end and on the boards.”
Ashland (6-15, 4-10) opened the fourth quarter on a 16-10 run and took a 58-57 lead on a pair of Gabe Baith free throws with 2:54 remaining. Senior High responded with a decisive 13-3 run to close the game. Most of the damage came at the free throw line, where Senior High hit 10 of their final 11 attempts to ice it.
“They did the things they needed to do in the last few minutes to win the game,” Ashland coach Jason Hess said. “They did a nice job of executing and making free throws at the offensive end and getting stops at the defensive end.
“We were right there and then I thought we took a couple of questionable shots and had some questionable decision-making.
“We got away from what we wanted to do defensively for really no reason at all with about three minutes to go and that allowed them to take the lead and then extend.”
The loss ruined a magnificent Senior Night performance by Ashland’s Grayson Steury, who recently passed 2015 AHS graduate Isaac White to move into second on Ashland’s career scoring list. Steury dropped a game-high 30 points, including a couple of Steph Curry-range 30-pointers in the third quarter.
“We tried to throw a bunch a different bodies at him tonight, but that kid is a ball player. There’s a reason he’s scored that many points in his high school career,” Sykes said. “Our guys did the best they could to try to slow him down, but he hit some deep ones.”
Keslar Bates backed Steury with 12 points. Kamden Mowry added seven.
For Mansfield Senior, Nathaniel Haney had 16 points. Roane added 14 points and seven rebounds, while Jacob Legron added eight.
