Fliers drill 15 3s, win third in a row

CLYDE — It was an avalanche. First it was Brayden Olson on the opening possession. Then Cedric Messer. Brennan Wilson joined the party moments later. Ben Wott got on the board, too. Wott added another, Wilson drained three more from deep, and before the spectators at Clyde High School could catch their breath, the Fliers had a 20-point lead in the opening quarter. "I love seeing that barrage," head coach Ryan Fretz said postgame. "Every coach would want that to happen all four quarters." Clyde poured it on from three in the first quarter against Huron, knocking down eight of nine triples en route to a 62-42 victory on Saturday night. "When we start hitting we don't miss," Wilson said. The junior was infallible to start the game. He drilled three deep shots in four possessions with the other coming from Wott. At the end of the first, Olson missed a triple but Wilson darted inside to collect the rebound and put it back in for a 28-8 lead at the quarter buzzer. "He's had a good week of basketball," Fretz said. "I'm happy for him." Wilson finished with a game-high 19, but offense wasn't his only contribution. One of Clyde's better defenders, the junior was tasked with face-guarding Huron sharpshooter Charlie Hardy. Wilson did his job and limited Hardy to five points, all in the second half. "My defense is what translated to my offense," Wilson said. The Fliers needed that defensive effort, as they scored just 16 points in the next two quarters. Huron switched from a 3-2 to a 2-3 and extended its zone up to combat Clyde's torrid shooting pace. "(Our players) always fight back and are really receptive to adjustments," Huron head coach Toby Miller said. "The issue is we have to start games with the same level of intensity as when we're clawing back." Miller allowed his players to do a lot of the talking in the halftime locker room. They communicated and looked to bounce back from being punched in the mouth to start. They did not allow a Clyde basket for 5:40 out of the halftime break. Jackson McNulty had eight in the third quarter and pulled the Tigers within 44-34 entering the fourth. "We all know success is not a straight up mountain," Fretz said. "There will be lulls. We hit one." Huron pulled within nine with 4:30 to play. Fretz called a timeout to remind his team of a discussion they had just that morning about responding to lulls like this one. Olson, the SBC Lake's leading scorer at 23.7 points per game, had been quiet for his offensive standards. He came out of timeout and immediately buried a three. Next possession was another. "There's one way to get yourself out of a shooting slump and that's to keep shooting the ball," Fretz said. Olson hit another corner three and followed it up with a transition layup to all but seal the Saturday night victory. "Clyde is hot, they can beat anyone," Miller said. "They're not someone you want to run into second half of the year." The Fliers have finally rounded into the form they've wanted to be all season. After a 93-point outing at Edison and a grind-it-out victory versus Norwalk, Clyde is on a three-game winning streak at the perfect time of year. "We've started to focus on the little things," Wilson said. "We changed up our goals for the end of the season and that has us trending in the right direction." The improvement Clyde has shown defensively is promising, but it was exciting to see sharpshooters Wilson and Olson bookend Saturday's victory with their scoring prowess. "We've put it together," Fretz said. "We're starting to establish that consistency and it's paying off." HURON Charlie Hardy 2-0-5, Joe Wood 1-0-2, Ryan Sas 3-1-7, Jackson McNulty 6-2-14, Grant Periat 1-0-2, Tommie McDonald 4-2-11, Landon Hohler 0-1-1 Totals: 17-6-42 CLYDE Ben Wott 3-0-9, Cedric Messer 2-0-5, Jackson Dashner 2-1-6, Brayden Olson 6-0-16, Price Carter 2-0-5, Brennan Wilson 7-0-19, Cayden Perkins 1-0-2 Totals: 23-1-62 Huron 8 8 18 8 — 42Clyde 28 10 6 18 — 62 3-point goals — Huron 2 (Hardy 1, McDonald 1); Clyde 15 (Wilson 5, Olson 4, Wott 3, Messer 1, Dashner 1, Carter 1)