Northeastern has best offensive showing of season in blowout win over Rushville

FOUNTAIN CITY, Ind. — Raedhyn Foust knows his role: “If I get open looks, knock them down.”

He plays that role well. The senior leads Northeastern in scoring at nearly 17 points a game, and he was at it again Friday, dropping a season-high 27 points for the second straight game in a 72-33 win over Rushville.

Foust isn’t the only one who knows what’s expected of him, and he wasn’t the only one to show it Friday night. Everyone who touched the floor seemingly played their offensive role to perfection, evident in their 40-17 lead at halftime.

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“I’m proud of everyone,” senior Payton Lumpkin said. “I love them, and they did amazing.”

Not leaving himself out of the praise, Lumpkin described his offensive job as being Foust’s mirror. Opposite-handed of Foust, Lumpkin does the same thing but on the other side of the hoop. He recorded a double-double with 10 points and 10 rebounds; an unspoken but understood duty of his is to grab every rebound in his vicinity.

To round out the seniors, Ben Deitsch facilitates the offense as the Knights’ three-year point guard. He said the easy part of his job is giving the ball to Foust and Lumpkin and letting them go to work, but he showed Friday he can be flashy, too. Late in the first quarter, Deitsch slung a one-handed bullet through the defense from the right corner to Foust on the left wing, who promptly drilled a 3-pointer. Early in the second quarter, Lumpkin found an opening in the paint while in transition, and Deitsch’s pass was already on its way from three-quarters of the court behind, leading to an easy bucket.

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“If everybody does their job and comes in focused every day, it’ll show on the scoreboard,” Deitsch said.

For a game like Friday’s to happen — outscoring the opponent by 39 points — head coach Brent Ross said it takes exactly that: everybody. Almost all players listed on the Knights’ varsity roster have played significant playing time this year, and it’s for good reason.

“We can start any of those 10 kids,” Ross said. “We’re deep, and all of them are playing pretty well.”

Lumpkin echoed his coach as he started to go down the list of everyone who consistently contributes.

“We’re 10 people deep. We’ve been 10 people deep all year,” Lumpkin said. “Our depth really gives us the edge over a lot of teams.”

All but six of the seniors’ combined 39 points came in the first half, but their lead kept growing. Even junior Grant Luebbe, who averages just under 10 points per game, only scored two, which shows just how good of an offensive game Northeastern played to still put up its highest point total of the season so far.

Simply put, the next man kept stepping up. Sophomore Wesley Hunt scored all 12 of his points in the fourth quarter, and six of junior Carson Terrell’s eight points came in the second half.

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“I think we’re getting better and better every game,” Ross said. “We had three in double figures and one with eight. To be a very good basketball team, I think you need four in double figures pretty consistently, and it can come from different people.”

The Knights have scored well above their season scoring average of 56 points per contest in their last two games. Ross said he hopes fans will start to think of Northeastern as an offensive power, but he also doesn’t want his players to forget where they excel.

It can be easy to forget how consistently solid the Knights’ defense has been this season — allowing just 33 points a game — when the offense shows up like it did Friday.

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“We want to stay focused on our defense because defense wins games,” Ross said.

If the Knights keep playing defense like they did Friday, they shouldn’t have to worry about their defensive identity changing.

Following a matchup with Blue River Valley Saturday, next up for Northeastern will be Randolph Southern Jan. 29 at home.

Zach Piatt reports on sports and education for The Palladium-Item. Contact him at zpiatt@gannett.com or on Twitter @zachpiatt13.

This article originally appeared on Richmond Palladium-Item: High school basketball: Northeastern blows out Rushville, 72-33.