Fighting Tigers share the wealth in win over Trojans
Published 12:00 am Wednesday, March 14, 2007
PORTSMOUTH — Maybe the Ironton Fighting Tigers are filming a remake of “The Three Musketeers.” Lately, it’s been an “All for one and one for all” approach.
Ironton’s unselfish play was evident again Tuesday as the Fighting Tigers balanced offense and aggressive defense produced a 72-56 win over the Portsmouth Trojans in a Southeastern Ohio Athletic League game.
“We’re really doing a good job of running our offense. We’re really sharing the ball. No one worries about who does the scoring,” Ironton coach Mark LaFon said.
Chad Miller led Ironton with another strong all-around performance. Miller had 21 points, 9 rebounds, 5 assists and 2 steals.
Also in double figures were Dustin Green with 13 points and Andy Colegrove had a double-double with 11 points and 10 rebounds.
Alstan Carter just missed double figures with 9 points and T.J. Keith had 8 points and 6 rebounds.
LaFon said another key to the win was Ironton’s 38-29 rebound advantage.
“This was a physically-called game, much like a tournament game,” LaFon said. “Size is not our strong suit and we blocked out well. This was a good game to prepare us for the tournament.”
Portsmouth was led by Troy Parker with 23 points. Leading scorer Charlie Doll was held to 10 points and 6-foot-6 Nate Cadogen had 4 points.
“We wanted to take Doll away and keep Cadogen was hurting us inside and we did that. But we had to give up something and Parker did a nice job. But overall we played extremely hard and we did a good job helping each other on defense,” LaFon said.
The game was tied at 6-6 with 3:30 left in the first quarter, but Ironton began to pull away and led 19-13.
After Green made back-to-back layups to put Ironton up 25-13, Portsmouth (3-16, 2-11) closed to within 25-22 on a layup by Doll with 2:21 left in the half.
A 3-pointer by Zach Christensen at the 1:03 mark upped Ironton’s lead to 31-22. The Trojans closed the half with a free throw by Parker.
Doll hit a trey to cut the deficit to 34-29, but Miller took over and hit a layup, a 3-pointer and converted a 3-point play at the 5:47 mark to build a 42-29 lead.
Parker had a 3-point play to get Portsmouth within 49-44, but Miller drained a trifecta with 31 seconds on the clock and the Fighting Tigers were up 52-44.
The Fighting Tigers continued to pull away in the fourth quarter. Carter hit the second of two foul shots, Green got a layup thanks to a steal by Miller and another free throw by Carter made it 68-51 with 2:14 left to play.
Ironton (14-5, 9-4) will play Marietta at 6 p.m. Saturday at Logan in the SEOAL Day of Champions.