Taking control: Cubs close out fourth quarter with leadership in win over Crestview

OLIVESBURG — With a four-point lead over Crestview heading into the fourth quarter on Tuesday night, Lucas coach Taylor Iceman's mind instantly went back to two moments in the season.

The first came late in a 51-44 loss to Berlin Hiland when the Cubs didn't show leadership down the stretch, and the other was when no one wanted to be the player to step up and hit a big shot in a 53-46 loss to Norwayne.

On Tuesday night, Iceman's worries all went away as the Cubs closed out the fourth quarter with a 17-10 advantage to knock off the Cougars 59-48 in a battle of two of Richland County's best small-school teams.

"We are finally learning how to win," Iceman said. "The past few years, we've had guys on our team that know how to win close games at the end. This year, we've lost two games to two really good teams because we didn't know how to win close games at the end.

"Games like this, it is great to close out the fourth quarter like we did."

The two teams battled to a scoreless stalemate for the first minute of the fourth quarter before the Cubs used a timeout to settle things down. That was when junior Corbin Toms put on his game face, decided to be the player to step up for his team and went on a personal 8-2 run over the next 2:42.

Toms knocked down two 3-pointers and added a steal and a layup off an in-bounds pass to help the Cubs turn a 42-38 lead into a 50-40 advantage with 4:16 left in the game, forcing a Crestview timeout.

Toms said he wanted to come out of the timeout and put a dagger into the game, and he did just that.

"Crestview's crowd was getting into the game and I was getting a little fired up myself," he said. "I let the refs get in my head a little bit, so I just got mad, found some energy, got after it and knocked down a couple of shots."

Toms scored seven of his 18 points in the fourth quarter before turning things over to his little brother, sophomore Logan Toms, who connected on five free throws down the stretch to close out the victory. Logan Toms led all scorers with 23 points, including eight in the third quarter.

The Cubs finished 9 of 12 overall from the free-throw line.

"In the first half, I didn't attack very much," Logan Toms said. "I noticed that I was being passive, so my mindset in the second half was to attack more and be assertive to try and get some easy points."

The Cougars made things difficult all night. After trailing by four at halftime, the Cougars pulled to within 28-27 when Jarek Ringler hit a layup, but the Cubs never surrendered the lead. Crestview did answer every Lucas bucket with a score of its own, pulling to within one point four times in the third quarter.

Cougars coach John Kurtz said he was proud of his team's effort.

"Part of the process is just growth," Kurtz said. "It is coming, but not as fast as people expect. Our guard play was great tonight, but we had two 45-second spells where we just didn't pay attention to what we were supposed to do, and a team like Lucas will make you pay."

Ringler led the Cougars with 13 points while Heath Kash had nine and Austin Wells, Mason Ringler and Owen Barker scored seven apiece.

The Cougars (6-6) came out in a 2-3 zone and stuck with it until late in the fourth quarter when they had to make things happen. They held the Cubs to just five 3s, two of those by Corbin Toms on back-to-back possessions.

"Our kids have trouble recognizing which kids are shooters and which ones aren't," Kurtz said. "He hits a 3 and then we let him get a wide-open look right after that for another one. It is just part of the learning process. We don't play a lot of zone, but I felt like it was a good option. They didn't make a ton of 3s and, overall, I thought our kids played very hard. It was one of the better games we have played this year."

Iceman said he was happy to see his team get some work in against a tough zone defense like Crestview's because the Cubs have an important Mid-Buckeye Conference game coming up at Central Christian Thursday night and the Comets play a hard-nosed zone defense. A win there could pretty much clinch the league championship for the Cubs, so they will stick to what made them successful Tuesday night.

"I told our kids that we have to go play Central Christian on a Thursday night, and there is not a better game to prepare us for that one because they play a zone defense and play it very well," Iceman said. "It will basically be for a league championship, and to get four quarters of zone prep in before that game is huge for us."

Logan Toms said the work against the zone will pay off down the road.

"We learned a lot from this game," Logan Toms said. "We got a ton of playing time against a zone because we have seen that a lot so far and are going to see it even more down the road. It was great because we need to learn how to win close games at the end and tonight, we did that."

And Corbin Toms said the success the Cubs enjoyed against the zone Tuesday will only build confidence moving forward.

"We actually go into games expecting to get zoned," he said. "The way to beat it is to just be strong with the ball and don't turn it over, take our time with possessions, and when we get a crease attack it and finish. That is what we did tonight."

The Cubs (10-2) implemented a new defense of their own with their full-court pressure right from the jump. It worked well in spurts when they created turnovers in the frontcourt and converted them into layups.

"We ran that defense well last year, but yesterday at practice we worked on it and decided to bring it into tonight," Logan Toms said. "We knew if we came out aggressive on defense, we could come away with a win."

Both teams played with a lot of energy to start the game with the Cougars crashing the boards hard and the Cubs picking up the defensive pressure in the full court. It was easy to see both teams improved in the matchup and are prepared for what is ahead.

"It was something we haven't seen yet this year with their intensity on defense and on the boards," Corbin Toms said. "Every time you turned around, someone was flying in for a rebound or pressuring you full court. Playing this style of game will only help us as we make a run at a league championship and hopefully in the tournament as well."

The Cougars started the season with four straight wins before losing five in a row. They have now won two of their last three with their lone loss coming to Lucas. Kurtz said finding what made his team successful and working out the kinks of his young, inexperienced team will be the focus in the second half of the season.

"I told our kids, in basketball, teams are either going up or down and hardly ever do teams stay the same," Kurtz said. "We have to get into practice and work on things that don't work for us and get better at them and simply gain more experience. We have one guard with significant varsity experience, so it will all be about progress and finding consistency and, once we get that, our bigs will be even better."

Meanwhile, the Cubs hope to continue to see the leadership grow and see players step up in key situations. Ty Lehnhart added 11 points, including seven in the first quarter.

"It is something we have talked about, and I actually had to get on them a little bit," Iceman said. "We had a long chat at practice because I felt like we were practicing like we were a pretty good 9-2 team. We had a good win against South Central, but other than that we have done what we were supposed to do. The two chances we had to win good games to feel good about, we failed. So there was a point of emphasis on getting back to what we do and not getting too overconfident at 9-2 and undefeated in the league."

Lucas travels to Central Christian on Tuesday. The Cubs are in first place in the MBC with a 6-0 record while CC is 4-1 and in second place. A win for Lucas would give it a two-game lead with three to play.

Things don't get any easier for the Cougars, who travel to Western Reserve on Friday, Colonel Crawford on Tuesday and South Central on Jan. 28.

jfurr@gannett.com

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Twitter: @JakeFurr11

This article originally appeared on Mansfield News Journal: Taking control: Cubs close out fourth quarter with leadership in win over Crestview