Sandusky slips past Bellevue in key Lake game

SANDUSKY — The Sandusky boys basketball team has a bevy of scorers that can go off on any given night. Friday in an important Sandusky Bay Conference Lake Division home game against Bellevue, it was Kymirr Hunter. The big body tallied 22 points and 10 rebounds, lifting Sandusky to a key 60-52 victory. "He was a load, but he's that every night," Sandusky coach DeMar Moore said of the senior. "Tonight, I thought they chose to single cover him, and he was able to get free and get some easy buckets. He comes in every day and works his butt off. "I'm not surprised when he has games like this because he works so hard every day." Hunter saved his best for the last quarter. With Sandusky (7-6, 4-1 SBC Lake) ahead 39-30 after three quarters, Hunter went toe-to-toe with anything the Redmen (10-4, 3-2) wanted to do. Sam Bollinger picked a steal and opened the fourth-quarter scoring for Bellevue. But Hunter responded on the other end. After Hudson Smith scored for Bellevue, Hunter answered for the Blue Streaks. Caden Cramer put in a score for the Redmen, but Hunter tallied a three-point play in response. That kept Sandusky up 46-36 with 5:31 to play. "Any time we get that kind of leadership out of our seniors, I'll take it," Moore said. "Tonight, it was Kymirr's turn to lead. That's what this team is about. We don't care who the best player is on any given night." With plenty of height to go around, Hunter had the firm attention of the Bellevue defense from the get-go. It didn't matter on this night. "The sad thing is our game plan was to slow down Kymirr before anybody," Redmen coach Ed Rich said. "He's a load in the paint. I watched him do the same exact thing against Tiffin. We wanted to slow him down. I thought we did OK on him, but boy oh boy, he put it in the basket and was good from the free throw line." Sandusky turned the game around in the third quarter. Bellevue led 25-23 at halftime and extended the lead when Reid Claus hit a 3-pointer. The Streaks turned up the defensive pressure from there. Buckets from Ahmahj Woolfork and Dale Johnson cut the deficit to one. Bollinger scored on the other end for Bellevue, but it was the last points the Redmen scored in the third quarter. A 3-pointer from Cam Jones tied the game at 30. Woolfork then hit a foul line jumper before Anthony Redding scored to extend the lead. Hunter added an offensive rebound and bucket before knocking down two free throws. That gave Sandusky a 39-30 edge after three quarters. "Third quarter, we had six turnovers and five points," Rich said. "It's tough to win that way. They picked up their intensity, and they were getting their hands on a lot of balls. It was good, clean plays. Their hands were knocking it out. We couldn't get it. They would get it and go down and score." Bellevue trailed just once in the first quarter and used a score from Ike Brown to take a 15-11 lead into the second quarter. The Redmen offense sputtered there, which wasn't a ton of disappointment to Rich. Bellevue scored just two free throws in the first 4:58 of the quarter. The Redmen went 5:23 without a field goal in the quarter. Still, once Bellevue hit a couple shots, it took a halftime lead. A three-point play from Caden Lindsey and free throw by Bollinger helped the Redmen to a 25-23 edge at the break. "I was fine with, I don't want to say a drought, but I was fine with working the clock," Rich said. "They are not obviously the Sandusky we've seen in the past of getting up and running and running. I'm not saying that's a bad thing. I was OK with a slow-paced game. The scoring drought didn't kill me as long as the shots we were taking were going in." Brown topped the Redmen with 17 points while Claus added 11 points. Bellevue is off until Thursday when it travels to Clyde in the battle of Route 20. "Other than this loss tonight, I feel good about where we're at," Rich said. "If you would have told me in June or July that we'd be 10-4 with a double-overtime loss to Perkins and a close game at Sandusky, I would have taken it all day. These kids have improved so much. "We're going to keep grinding. We're pretty good." Woolfork added 10 points for Sandusky while Redding and Johnson each scored nine points. The win keeps the Streaks a game back of Perkins (13-0, 5-0) in the league race. "I don't like to put a lot of pressure on our guys," Moore said. "We treat every game like a championship game. It was no different from our last game. "We came in and approached it like any other game. We wanted to play our best, play hard, and play together and see what happens." BELLEVUE (10-4, 3-2) Sam Bollinger 3 1-2 7, Ike Brown 5 6-11 17, JJ Vogel 1 0-0 3, Reid Claus 3 2-2 11, Elijah Turinsky 0 0-0 0, Caden Cramer 3 2-2 9, Hudson Smith 1 0-0 2, Caden Lindsey 1 1-1 3. TOTALS 17 12-18 52 SANDUSKY (7-6, 4-1) Anthony Redding 3 3-4 9, Dale Johnson 3 3-3 9, Ahmahj Woolfork 4 2-2 10, Cam Jones 3 0-0 7, Kymirr Hunter 8 6-8 22, Daishun Brown 1 0-0 2, Wade Moore 0 1-2 1. TOTALS 22 15-19 60 Bellevue 15 10 5 22 — 52 Sandusky 11 12 16 21 — 60 Three-point goals: Bellevue 6 (Claus 3, Brown, Vogel, Cramer); Sandusky 1 (Jones)