Lakota East routs Big Blue

Givens, Wise score 10 each in losing cause as Hamilton falls for first time this season.

LIBERTY TWP. — The Hamilton High boys basketball team ran into arguably the deepest and most talented team in the Greater Miami Conference on Friday night at the ’Hawks Nest.

It wasn’t pretty.

The host Thunderhawks had seven players score at least five points and 11 players reach the scoresheet on their way to a 69-39 triumph over the Big Blue.

“They’ve got a good group,” Hamilton coach Tim Robinson said of East. “They’ve been together since they were sophomores. They were voted near the top of the league for a reason and they showed it tonight.”

Senior Cameron Lee came off the bench to score 13 points and fellow senior Michael Boyd tossed in 10 to pace East, which followed up a season-opening win over GMC favorite Princeton with an impressive performance against the Big Blue.

East was voted third in the coaches preseason poll behind Princeton and Middletown.

“We’re deep,” said Lee, a 6-foot-3 forward. “We can all the way down to the last person on our bench. We’ve got a bunch of guys we can send out on the court.”

Jeff Cargill added nine points and Allante Foster and R.J. Leppert had eight apiece for the Thunderhawks, who were boosted by the return of Mark Minch (back) and Brian Evans (leg) on Friday night.

“We feel like we’ve got 10 guys who can play,” said East coach Wally Vickers, whose team improved to 2-0 overall and in the GMC. “But it’s early so we’ve got to keep getting better every day and keep working.”

Roblow Givens and sophomore Corey Wise scored 10 points apiece to pace Hamilton, which fell to 2-1 overall and 0-1 in the GMC.

The Big Blue hung with the Thunderhawks for most of the first half, trailing by only six (22-16) after Wise’s driving bucket.

From there, East finished out the first half with a 12-4 surge and then got a 3-pointer to start the third from Boyd to stretch the lead to 37-20. Hamilton never recovered.

“We were playing with them for awhile and then we got in foul trouble,” Robinson said. “At the end of the half they stretched it out to 14 and that really hurt us. The end of the second quarter really affected us at halftime. The kids were really down. We’ve got to bounce back on Tuesday.”

Hamilton travels to Kettering Fairmont on Tuesday.

East returns to the court on Dec. 18 at the Seahawk Holiday Classic in Hilton Head, S.C. The Thunderhawks open play against Summerville (S.C.) at 2:30 p.m.

“It’ll be fun,” Vickers said. Three games in three days. We’re going down to win the tournament.”

Contact this reporter at (513) 705-2506 or jboyle@coxohio.com.

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