Lexington looks like OCC frontrunner in rout of West Holmes

MILLERSBURG —Visiting Lexington used its superior size and strength inside, displaying an array of athleticism and deft shooting in dominating West Holmes 73-53 in Ohio Cardinal Conference action Friday in the Dungeon.

Featuring a front line of 6-7 senior Baden Forup who scored 24 points (12-of-17 from the floor) and muscled down a dozen rebounds, including eight on the offensive end; 6-foot-8 junior Elijah Hudson, who scored 14 points and 6-4 Hudson Moore, who also scored 14 on 7-of-9 shooting, the Minutemen bolted out to a 21-7 lead in the first quarter and never looked back in notching their first win of the season.

Lexington coach Scott Hamilton liked what he saw out of his troops, who benefited from an extra week of practice after their opener last Friday was postponed because their new gym wasn't ready.

"Having the extra week to work was nice from a coaching standpoint, but the kids wanted to get out there and play," Hamilton said. "I do have some upperclassmen who played last year, so for those guys, things happened real quick, and gave us some time to work with some younger guys.

"Ever since I've been coaching here, we've wanted to play from the inside out," he added. "I've had the luxury of having some size, and this year, we can stretch some of that size out onto the perimeter a little bit. That's definitely one of those things we want to take advantage of when we can in the paint."

The Minutemen held a 34-16 edge on the glass, including 19 offensive boards, leading to many second and third chance opportunities.

"With our size and athleticism, we should be a strong rebounding team night in and night out," Hamilton said. "And when you go up against a team that can't match your size, I thought we did a real nice job establishing that early that led to some second chance opportunities that really got us going in that first half."

Right from the start, Hudson, Moore and Forup did most of the damage for Lexington, while Zevin Proper stroked a pair of 3-pointers on his way to scoring eight of the Knights' first 12 points. Mason Wolfe connected inside for the other four first quarter points for West Holmes.

Hudson showed his range, knocking down a longrange bomb, and Gavin Husty also drained one from deep as the Minutemen built a 21-12 lead after one period of play.

Buckets by Moore, Forup and a couple scores by highly touted 6-4 freshman Brayden Fogle, including a rousing two-handed jam, helped the visitors extend their lead to 30-12. Fogle finished with eight points and eight rebounds. The lead was 37-18 at intermission.

Proper connected two more times from long range in the third quarter, and Zander Shultz got hot, hitting a couple 3-pointers and also scoring on mid-range jumpers. The senior finished with a team-high 20 points to go with Proper's 14. It just wasn't enough to match with the Minutemen bigs.

It was the second straight setback suffered by the Knights, but first-year West Holmes coach Seth Martin sees good things coming.

"We knew this first week of the season was going to be really tough, with River View having two really good guards, and with Lex just having really good big men," Martin said. "We know what we have to do to be able to compete with them better next time. We need to execute better on offense, take care of the ball and defend, being tougher, boxing out and rebounding better."

West Holmes committed 12 turnovers to only six for Lexington, and playing against quality competition like the Minutemen, the Knights could ill-afford to be careless with the ball.

"With Lexington — and I'll put New Phila up there too — those are two teams that are both big, strong and have some good guys coming back with a lot of varsity experience," Martin said. "You can't take away that varsity experience, and those are guys that can play. They play a lot of basketball year-round, and they know how to play, and how to execute.

"But we're going to get there," he continued. "Our guys played hard. One thing we've got to do is when we play against these tougher teams, just relax a little bit, not try to run and gun, but run our offense and take our time."

The coach noted that watching Lexington on film doesn't quite do justice as to how big they really are.

"Up close, those guys are a lot bigger than they look on film," he said. "They're big and strong and know how to use their bodies and finish. Hopefully next time we'll [play them a little stronger and do some different things against them."

Martin added that he has a team of guys who haven't been together very long, and is still learning how to play together.

"The guys are learning. They're buying in and we'll get things going in the right direction," he said. "We look forward to playing a team like Lexington the second time around."

This article originally appeared on The Daily Record: Boys Basketball: Lexington beats West Holmes 73-53 in OCC opener