Phoenix try for 4th straight win Friday night

After a slow start to the sea­son, the Phoenix var­sity boys bas­ket­ball team is rid­ing high after win­ning their third straight game in 2012 with a 60-33 thrash­ing of Clearview Fri­day night.

Ober­lin was led by big games from Jason Moore and Trevon Tucker who each scored 16 points.

“The cur­rent three-game streak is due to our com­mit­ment in play­ing with effort and inten­sity,” said head coach Kurt Rus­sell. “The tal­ent is there, how­ever the moti­va­tion to improve each week was not. Over the Christ­mas break we ded­i­cated our­selves to improv­ing each week.”

The Phoenix started the sea­son with a dis­ap­point­ing 2-4 record, after hav­ing high hopes of build­ing on last season’s 7-0 record to begin the year. Ober­lin is now back above .500 with the three-game win streak at 5-4.

Clearview kept the game close through the first quar­ter, as the game was tied at 11 going into the sec­ond quarter.

That’s when Oberlin’s defense took over.

The Clip­pers were only able to score one field goal in the sec­ond quar­ter, allow­ing the Phoenix to push to a 27-17 half­time advan­tage. Things didn’t get much bet­ter for Clearview in the sec­ond half.

Like the sec­ond quar­ter, the third quar­ter saw the Clip­pers only score one field goal, and only two points total. After three quar­ters, Ober­lin was in con­trol of the game 41-19.

“I thought we played an out­stand­ing sec­ond half against Clearview. Our zone defense gave them dif­fi­cul­ties and we were able to get easy bas­kets off of tran­si­tion,” Rus­sell said. “Every­one played a good game.”

The Phoenix dom­i­nated all facets of the game. Besides hold­ing the Clip­pers to only 24 per­cent shoot­ing from the field, Ober­lin dom­i­nated the rebound­ing game too.

Behind junior DeShaun Horton’s 13 rebounds, and 11 from Moore, the Phoenix con­trolled the boards, out rebound­ing Clearview 62-37.

Ober­lin will next host Lutheran West Fri­day night at 7:30 at Ober­lin High School.

Posted by Scott Mahoney on Jan 20 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.