COLUMBUS - When the fire's hot, keep adding wood.

Or in the case of Dennis Gagai, add gasoline.

Gagai's shooting hand was blazing Saturday night and his Ironton

teammates made sure he had the ball in a career-high 36 points performance that led the Fighting Tigers to an 89-64 rout of the St. Francis DeSales Stallions.

Gagai was 14 of 23 from the field including a school-record for 3-point goals as he made 8 of 12.

Lost in

Gagai's performance was Brigham Waginger who was 12 of 15 from the floor and scored 26 points. He also had nine assists and five steals.

"Dennis got the hot hand and our guys got it to him. They tried to cut Cliff (Howard) off inside and that opened up our guards," Ironton coach Roger Zornes said. "Brigham and Dennis took advantage of it. Dennis been doing that the last couple of weeks in practice and in the games."

Ironton, now 12-0, dominated the taller, athletic Stallions who featured a starting lineup of two players at 6-foot-6 and two at 6-5 including Alex Kellogg, son of former Ohio State star Clark Kellogg.

Coach Zornes praise his defense.

"Dennis did a good job on Kellogg, and Marcus (Williams) did a good job on Allen. Joe (Zornes) had a banger (Ricky Taylor) in there and he did a good job banging around with him," coach Zornes said. "Brigham harassed their point guard all night.

"We played well. There are certain games we have to step up to another level. We had to play championship style basketball and tonight's that what we did."

Gagai scored 16 points in the first quarter including four 3-pointers as Ironton roared to a 29-10 lead. The defense forced DeSales into 10 turnovers.

The lead was 45-22 with Waginger hit a baseline jumper with 2:45 left in the half. But DeSales went on a 13-2 run to end the half and trailed 47-35.

"They got a run on us because we just weren't blocking out and then we firing it up on the other end. We have to learn how to manage the game better. We still have a long way to go," coach Zornes said.

Waginger had a layup and Gagai hit a 3-pointer as Ironton stretched its lead to 58-39 to start the second half. The Stallions Elijah Allen had 8 points in the quarter to keep Ironton from running away, but a 15-footer by Gagai with 50 seconds left in the third quarter pushed the lead to 67-45.

A foul shot by Andrew Thomas had DeSales trailing 67-46 at the end of the quarter.

Back-to-back 3-pointer by Thomas with 4:12 to play cut Ironton's lead to 72-58, but Howard made two foul shots, Waginger hit a 3-pointer, turned a steal into a layup and followed up a missed shot, and Williams scored inside as Ironton went up 87-64 with a minute to play.

Allen led DeSales (7-5) with 26 points and Kellogg added 14, but only two in the second half.

In the reserve game, Ironton won 58-54 in overtime.

Ironton29182022-89

DeSales10251118-64

IRONTON (12-0):

Dennis Gagai 14-23 (8-12) 0-0 36, Brigham Waginger 12-15 (1-1) 1-2 26, Joe Zornes 4-11 (1-3) 0-0 9, Cliff Howard 3-6 (0-0) 2-2 8, Marcus Williams 4-6 (0-0) 0-0 8, Brent McBride 0-1 (0-0) 0-0 0, Greg Linn 0-1 (0-0) 0-0 0, Patrick Kouns 0-1 (0-0) 0-0 0, Brian Wirzfeld 1-2 (0-0) 0-0 2, Chad Miller 0-0 (0-0) 0-0 0, Brandon Walker 0-0 (0-0) 0-0 0, Shawon Miller 0-0 (0-0) 0-0 0. Totals: 38-66

(10-16)

3-4

89. Fouls: 12. Fouled out: None. Rebounds: 15-16=31 (Howard 7, Williams 5). Team/deadball: 3. Assists: 20 (Waginger 9, Gagai 5, Zornes 5). Steals: 12 (Waginger 5, Gagai 2, Zornes 2, Howard 2, Williams 1). Turnovers: 8.

COLUMBUS DeSALES (6-3):

Alex Kellogg 6-12 (0-0) 2-2 14, Elijah Allen 9-20 (1-6) 7-11 26, Ricky Taylor 3-4 (0-0) 0-1 6, David Knapke 1-5 (0-3) 0-0 2, Cris Diedalis 2-8 (1-6) 0-0 5, Andrew Thomas 3-10 (2-7) 1-2 9, Brandon Gessner 0-2 (0-0) 0-0 0, Brad Boyd 0-0 (0-0) 0-0 0. Totals: 25-62

(10-16

64. Fouls: 10. Fouled out: None. Rebounds: 16-13=29 (Kellogg 8, Allen 6). Team/deadball: 6. Turnovers: 17.