Lima Senior’s Je’Kel Cotton lets go a shot against Lima Central Catholic’s Carson Parker during Tuesday night’s game at Lima Senior. See more high school basketball photos at LimaScores.com.
Richard Parrish | The Lima News
Facing a stretch of four games in five days, Lima Senior dialed back its press a bit to save its players’ legs. But those legs certainly weren’t too tired to launch 3-pointers during a 77-44 boys basketball win over Lima Senior on Tuesday night at Senior High.
The Spartans got 13 3-pointers from eight players on their way to their way to their ninth consecutive win over LCC.
Je’Kel Cotton scored 13 points to lead Lima Senior (8-4). Anthony Mosley, Amarion Glenn and Isaiah Wilson all scored 10 points. Cotton had three 3-pointers and Glenn, Wilson and Khaliq Wash all had two of them. Carson Parker led LCC (5-7) with 11 points.
“Take away the Findlay game and we’ve been shooting it pretty good,” Lima Senior coach Quincey Simpson said. “We’ve got a really good shooting team. The thing about our team the last three games is we’re sharing the ball. We’re not caring where the points come from and everybody has committed to just being an all-in guy and the game has been easier for everybody.
“We haven’t pressed since Findlay. We’ve played a lot of games in a short window. So we have to figure out as coaches what we can do to save our kids’ legs. As long as I’ve been here I’ve been a pressing guy. So I struggle with assistants telling me not to press.
“We didn’t press against O-G, we didn’t press yesterday (against Springboro in the Flying to the Hoop Classic) and we didn’t press one time tonight,” he said. “We were locked in defensively halfcourt and I thought it was phenomenal.”
Phenomenal in one man’s eyes is daunting in another’s eyes. A fast start and all those threes left LCC trying to play catch-up all night.
“It was raining three’s,” said LCC coach Frank Kill. “I remember back in Seg’s (Bob Seggerson) era we walked into the gym and they hit five threes on us in the first quarter and Coach Seggerson turned around and said, ‘Well, there goes my scouting report.’ It’s kind of what happened tonight. When you’ve got guys who are just knocking down 20-footers and we’re missing and making 2-pointers, it’s not going to be a good night for us.
“Lima Senior came out and executed everything they wanted to and we weren’t ready for those blows,” he said.
Lima Senior opened the game by hitting 10 of its first 12 shots, getting lay-up after lay-up, hitting 3-pointers and getting points in transition.
The shooting pace slowed down a bit in the second quarter but the Spartans’ lead continued to grow. By halftime Lima Senior was up 39-20.
LCC was within four points, 14-10, with less than a minute to play in the first quarter when Lima Senior connected on back-to-back-to-back 3-pointers in the final 41 seconds of the first quarter to expand its lead to 11 points after the game’s first eight minutes in one of the most high impact sequences in the game.
Wilson started that barrage with a 3-pointer, then Glenn hit one, the Wilson came back with another. And that was just the beginning for the Spartans.
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Reach Jim Naveau at 567-242-0414.
