First Posted: 1/23/2015
LIMA — It’s not inevitable but it’s in the plan.
Lima Senior’s boys basketball team goes into games with the idea that it can wear an opponent down. Sometimes it might happen all of a sudden, sometimes it takes a while.
The lastest example of this came when the Spartans beat Toledo St. Francis 66-47 on Friday night at Senior High.
St. Francis (6-6, 3-2 Three Rivers Athletic Conference) hung with Lima Senior (8-2, 6-1 TRAC) early, led by two points at halftime and was still within two points late in the third quarter.
But Lima Senior outscored the Knights 35-14 in the second half.
“We wore them down. We’re a well-conditioned team. We understand this is a marathon not a sprint. We expect to get teams’ best shot early but as the game goes on we want to wear teams down. And obviously that’s what we did tonight,” Lima Senior coach Quincey Simpson said.
Xavier Simpson scored 18 points and Elijah Pughsley had 17 points to lead Lima Senior to its eighth win in a row and its third in the last four days.
St. Francis connected on five 3-pointers in the second quarter to go up 33-31 at halftime.
It wasn’t until Lima Senior ran off eight unanswered points late in the third quarter and at the start of the fourth to go in front 49-41 that it pulled away.
Simpson said one thing made the difference between the second half and the first half.
“Effort,” he said. “I think my guys got too comfortable from how we’ve been playing the last two or three games. In the second half, guys were moving a little quicker, we got more loose balls, we were able to get out in transition more and play Lima Senior basketball,” he said.
