By Phil Keren

Correspondent

The Kent Roosevelt boys basketball team took a big step forward on Friday when they defeated Stow 46-45 in a scrappy, hard-fought game to notch their first win of the young season.

Kent Roosevelt (1-1) head coach Curtis Black said it’s been 11 years since the Rough Riders defeated Stow on the hardwood and added he was “very proud” of the way his team responded at crunch time.

“This is a rivalry game,” Black said. “It’s just a big game, one, and two, to do it in this fashion, our first win of the season, I couldn’t ask for a better way. I think our seniors and juniors have been around long enough to kind of weather these kind of storms. I think last year we probably lost 10 or 12 games within four or five points. They’ve been battle-tested and it showed tonight.”

Roosevelt junior guard Sevyn Jones made the first of his two free throws with 1.5 seconds remaining to give the Rough Riders a 46-45 lead. Stow’s initial inbounds pass into the frontcourt was knocked out of bounds by a Roosevelt defender.

With 0.4 seconds left, Stow tried to inbound the ball to senior guard Eddie Norman, but the pass was tipped away by Roosevelt junior forward Cyler Foreman.

Black praised Jones for his “toughness” and for “being prepared for the moment.”

Jones scored 20 points, including the Rough Riders’ final 10 points of the game.

“Sevyn, he’s an elite scorer,” Black said. “I think when he gets in the zone as far as being able to get in the paint, being able to make good, solid passes, his jump shot was falling tonight…he had two 3s, a couple mid-range jumpers. … When that’s falling for him, the whole floor is going to open up for him — he played lights out. I’m extremely proud of him.”

Black said he and his staff have emphasized the importance of starting games with a lot of energy and he felt the players responded to that message on Friday.

“We talked about not spotting other teams double-digit leads in the first quarter,” Black said. “I think, tonight, we did an excellent job of, I want to say, starting the same way every quarter…I think we started strong every quarter, my guys responded. We challenged them a lot this week and they answered the call.”

At the start of the game, senior forward Gavin Peeps, senior guard John Estep and senior

forward EJ Chum made 3-point shots as the Rough Riders built an early 9-5 lead. At the end of the first quarter, Roosevelt held a 15-12 advantage.

In the second quarter, Stow sophomore guard Logan Fleishour drilled a 3-pointer and then made a layup on a drive to the hoop to put the Bulldogs ahead, 18-15, about 3 minutes into the period. Jones then swished a 3-point shot to tie the game at 18 and Foreman made a driving layup to put Roosevelt ahead by two. The Rough Riders went to the locker room at halftime with a 26-20 advantage.

“The message at halftime was to start the game the way we started the first quarter,” Black said.

Roosevelt followed through by opening the second half on a 10-4 run that gave them a 36-24 lead with 2:30 left in the third quarter. Those 10 points came on a floater by Chum, a trey from Jones on a pass from Peeps, a 3-pointer by Peeps and a dunk by Peeps after a feed from Foreman.

Stow then answered with a 12-2 run that covered the remainder of the third quarter and the beginning of the fourth quarter. They never got the lead back, but pulled to within two points on two separate occasions (38-36 and 40-38).

Down the stretch, Jones scored on four drives to the hoop to keep his team ahead. With

Roosevelt leading 45-43 with less than a minute, Fleishour cross-overed his dribble to get around a Roosevelt defender, drove to the basket and laid it in to tie the game.

On Roosevelt’s next possession, Jones drove to the hoop again and was fouled. Jones made 1-of-2 foul shots to give the Rough Riders its final margin of victory.

Black offered kudos to Peeps (10 points, 8 rebounds) for his leadership capabilities.

“What you saw tonight is the work that he’s put in over four years of learning to be a leader,” Black said. “You saw it in the football team as well. It’s translated here…He was just as vocal as us in those timeouts…that’s the kind of leader he is. It’s infectious…He makes everyone believe and not just by his vocal actions, but he’s also going to do the physical actions on the floor, (such as) diving around for a loose ball, talking more on defense, getting a tip, getting a deflection. Those are huge plays…his handprint was all over the game.”

Black noted he hasn’t coached many games where two of his players scored in double figures,

but it happened with Jones tallying 20 points and Peeps chipping in 10.

“To get two guys (score) in double digits and then have a bunch of other guys chipping in all up

and down the board. It was a total team effort.”

Throughout the game, Black and his staff urged the players to attack on offense. The message was heard, particularly in the second half when Jones scored eight points on drives to the basket.

“Our guys, they want to play free,” Black said. “I think we’re skilled enough to play free. I think we make good enough decisions to play free and that’s the result of it. You see Sevyn get loose doing what he wants to do. Gavin Peeps being the glue to hold every thing together. A ton of guys hit big shots. Sophomore Gavin Polca came off the bench and played great defense the entire game. Everybody played their role. It’s just a testament to this team and this group of guys.”