ST. CLAIR TWP. — Kellen Reid didn’t take long at all to respond to the Ross High School boys basketball team’s two most recent losses in question.
“Absolutely, we had no choice but to bounce back,” the senior guard said.
Reid scored a team-high 14 points, Ben Voegele had 13, Riley Caldwell had 11 and the Rams never trailed in a 59-43 victory over Southwest Ohio Conference rival Edgewood on Friday night.
“We lost to a very good Fairfield team, and then we lost to another good Wyoming team,” Reid said. “We just wanted to get back to what we usually do on the court. We saw a glimpse of that.”
While Ross (7-3, 3-0 SWOC) snapped its two-game regular season losing streak, at the same time it halted a two-game skid to Edgewood.
“Coming in here, you’re always going to have to bring your best,” Rams coach David Lane said. “Coach (Jason) Osterman is doing a nice job over there. They put us in a situation offensively where we had to respond to something we typically don’t see all the time.”
Caldwell scored the last eight points of the first quarter as Ross got out to an early 19-6 lead.
Then the Cougars (2-8, 1-2 SWOC) moved into a zone, which forced the long-range shooting Rams to adjust. Ross proceeded to knock down seven 3-pointers on its way to remain unbeaten atop the league.
“We struggled defending the ball,” said Osterman, whose squad has lost four straight. “We knew we wanted to take away the 3-point line because they’re such a good 3-point shooting team. But then we struggled to guard the ball. When you’re not helping as much on the ball and you can’t guard the ball, it’s tough to defend.
“I thought we did a good job of slowing them up with the zone a little bit,” Osterman added. “But when you’re down like that at the half, you can’t sit in a zone. You have to come out and try to pressure.”
Ross owned a 30-14 advantage at the break, and the Cougars responded with an 8-0 run to jumpstart the third quarter.
“When they came out with that little run, I thought we were a little complacent,” Reid said. “We had to put the foot on the pedal and put this game away. That’s what we did. We sort of locked back in.”
The Rams answered with a 15-0 scoring spree that was capped off by an Isaac Nunn 3-pointer, which made it the largest margin of the night at 52-27 with about five minutes left to play.
Edgewood senior guard Peyton Smith showed why he’s the SWOC’s leading scorer on Friday. He bucketed a game-high 16 points while fighting through an ankle injury, according to Osterman.
“We didn’t know if we were going to have him tonight, but he battled out there,” Osterman said of Smith, who came in averaging 15.3 points a game. “He’s taken on a lot of the load offensively for us.”
“You had to know where (Smith) was at on the floor,” Reid added. “He’s their most lethal threat.”
Senior Colton Hunt returned to the lineup after being banged up and scored 10 points for the Cougars.
“We’re getting healthy,” said Osterman, who noted that his program hasn’t played at full strength all season. “We’re going to keep getting better as we go.”
Ross fired 16 of 21 (76.1%) from the free throw line, while Edgewood went just 9 of 18 (50%).
“We didn’t play well at all against Wyoming,” Voegele said. “But we bounced back tonight, played hard and got the win.”
UP NEXT
Ross hosts East Central on Saturday (today) and then travels to Harrison on Tuesday. Edgewood visits Mount Healthy on Tuesday.
