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Ansonia sophomore Hunter Muir drives to the bucket for two of his 11
points in the Tigers win over Arcanum, 52-44 Tuesday. CNO Photos by
Danny Stockton, stocktonstudio.com
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Ansonia hangs
on for second win of season
Tigers upend Arcanum
By George Starks
ANSONIA- It was just over a month ago when Mississinawa Valley head
coach Tim Barga said, “I’m glad we’re playing them now. I wouldn’t want
to play them later in the season.”
On that night, the Blackhawks pounded Ansonia by a large margin, 56-29
at Ansonia.
Last Friday, the Tigers got their first win of the season by recording
a 53-42 victory over Bradford, a team they lost to on the opening night
of the season, 55-44.
Led by sophomore Brayden Swabb and freshman Hunter Muir with 11 each
and 10 from senior Dane Wentwoth, Ansonia picked up its second straight
win of the season with a 52-44 victory over Arcanum in Cross County
Conference action Tuesday.
In the season opening loss at Bradford, the Tigers lost six straight
before beating the Roaders in the conference game.
“We just didn’t play very well that night. That’s the bottom line,”
said Arcanum coach Chad Cramer. “We’ve gotten better since then but so
has Bradford. In our scrimmages, we looked a lot like we did tonight.
Defense is still a huge issue and we still have trouble rebounding.
When you start out 0-6, you really start to wonder if you’re doing the
right thing.”
Up 12-9 after one and 21-17 at the half, Ansonia came out like a ball
of fire to start the third.
The Tigers went on a 12-3 run, highlighted by three triples from Swabb,
opening up a commanding 33-21 advantage at the 1:58 mark of the frame
and contend to keep the pressure on, going up 38-26 at the end of the
quarter.
“We have a lot of guys that can shoot the ball,” said Cramer. “Dane was
pretty much carrying the load until some of these other guys were
ready. Brayden cane shoot it. He was 0 for 10 on the year until
tonight. We knew he was going to break out of it. It was good to see
him knock down those shots. That was a big deal for us. In the case of
Hunter, we challenged him a little bit at halftime. We thought he was
fading away on his post moves. He needs to be more aggressive and
moving toward the basket. He did that in the second half and he made
some big plays for us..”
Arcanum wasn’t about to roll over.
In the final frame, the Trojans made a push, going on an 11-4 run
midway through the quarter, closing the gap to a 42-37 count.
Down the stretch, the Tigers were too hot to handle, hitting some much
needed foul shots with under a minute to play.
With the win, the Tigers got to 2-6 on the season and 2-2 in the
conference.
The Trojans will carry that same 2-6 mark into play next Monday in the
Jet Tournament as they will open things up with Brookville.
Ansonia will be idle until January 2 when the Tigers will host
Mechanicsburg.
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Arcanum
senior Austin Baker eyes the bucket for the Trojans.
Baker led Arcanum in scoring with 10 points.
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