Sandusky dunks Oberlin for 12th straight win

OBERLIN — Sandusky just keeps on rolling. The Blue Streaks made the 45-minute trip east to Oberlin on Tuesday night and didn't leave much doubt in a 79-43 win, the 12th consecutive victory for coach DeMar Moore's squad. They're 16-1 overall, and as the calendar turns to February, they haven't lost since Dec. 15. "It's just a matter of trusting what we do, sticking to a plan and trusting the process," Coach Moore said. Daylen Green maintained his steady yet dominant play with 23 points, seven rebounds and two strong dunks. De'Mar Moore went for 15 points and eight assists. Kobe Brown added 14 points and Jason Henlon had 10. The Blue Streaks (9-1 SBC Lake) ensured they'd take plenty of steam into Friday's rematch with Perkins. If Sandusky wins that one, it will clinch a share of the SBC Lake Division championship. "We've got to get back to work at practice, play hard and play hard from the jump," Brown said. For a few minutes, it looked like the host Phoenix might hang. They opened in a 3-2 zone that caused some hesitation from Sandusky. "We were just being passive," Coach Moore said. "Normally we're aggressive against the zone, but for whatever reason, we started pretty passive." It was 17-13 Blue Streaks after one, and Oberlin scored the first basket of the second quarter. But as happens so often, Sandusky had a game-changing run. This one was 12-0, and it started with an Aa'Zoriyon Bonner righty floater. Then Chayce Garr (nine points) finished strong off a drive before a Henlon layup in transition. Then it was Henlon after an offensive rebound, Green on a pass up the floor by Amir Aaron and then Green again on a short jumper. "We got a few shots going down and started to get it going offensively," Moore said. "We did a really good job tonight of sharing the ball and finding the open guy." This run may not have had the dunk (those came later) or the quick-strike 3-pointers, but it took the margin from two to 14 in a hurry nonetheless. "Basketball is a game of many runs, many mistakes, everything," Moore said, "and we just teach our guys to have a short memory, come back and keep playing hard." Sandusky kept cruising from there, scoring 25 of the final 32 points in the first half to go up 42-22 at the break. "We start off slow a lot, so we've gotta work on that," Brown said. "But in the long run, we can fix it and be great." In the second half, it was all Blue Streaks with a 23-4 run out of the locker room on the back of defensive pressure. That's when the dunks came. First it was Green with one of his now-standard righty one-handers after jumping a passing lane. Only five seconds later, the sophomore Brown did the same thing. His teammates have gotten on his case for being a "practice dunker," but he brought practice to the game Tuesday night with a right-handed flush, Brown's first in-game slam. "They're always on me at practice," Brown said. "I told them I never get the chance, and I got the chance tonight." "He's always dunking in practice but in games he can never pull one off," Green added. "It felt really good to see him get one." Green added to the dunking variety with a follow-up dunk on the offensive glass, something he'd been going for in recent games but hadn't yet completed. This time, mission accomplished with two hands over a helpless defender. "I finally got it," Green said. "I've been trying for a couple games now, and I finally got it. It felt good." Green added two free throws before checking out to give him 23 points on the night, raising his season total to 308 and getting his scoring average up to 18.1 points per game. "It's cool, because we can rely on him to get some buckets when we're down," Brown said. "When nobody's scoring, we can rely on Daylen Green to get it done." The Blue Streaks' crossover JV/varsity players got some run down the stretch — Willie Wilson scored after an offensive rebound and Tate Maillard swished a baseline jumper off a nice drive and kick by Aaron. In the final moments, Sandusky's cheerleaders broke into their now-routine "Streakball" chants as the buzzer sounded. They've accompanied each of the Blue Streaks' last 12 games, and 16 of the 17 this season. And that phrase, one that came in vogue originally when Coach Moore was playing and has been plenty popular of late with him now on the bench, describes everything about this Blue Streaks team. They don't plan on letting this win streak stop any time soon. ---SANDUSKY Willie Wilson 1 0-0 2, Jason Henlon 4 1-2 10, Aa'Zoriyon Bonner 1 0-2 2, De'Mar Moore 4 6-7 15, Daylen Green 10 2-4 23, Donovan Klein 1 0-0 2, Kobe Brown 7 0-1 14, Chayce Garr 4 0-0 9, Tate Maillard 1 0-0 2. TOTALS 33 9-16 79 OBERLIN Perry 2 0-0 4, Hopkins 1 4-4 6, Steen 1 1-2 3, Walker 2 2-6 6, Eichter 3 3-4 9, Holt 1 0-0 2, Thompson 5 3-4 13 Sandusky 17 25 27 10 — 79Oberlin 13 9 8 13 — 43 Three-point goals — Sandusky 4 (Henlon, Green, Moore, Garr); Oberlin 0