By T. Scott Boatright
The game clock gave Ruston High School basketball team its biggest problem Wednesday night, not Northwood High School.
In fact, the Falcons didn’t present much trouble at all for the Bearcats.
With the teams facing off in a game featuring a portable scoreboard set up on the scorer’s table due to clock malfunction with the main scoreboard, Ruston took control early on and raced to a 59-16 win over Northwood inside the RHS main gym
Ruston’s Joran Parker stopped and popped a 3-pointer 30 seconds into the contest before Northwood countered with a pair of free throws to cut the Bearcats’ lead to one point.
But a dunk from sophomore post player Ahmad Hudson a minute later stretched the Bearcats’ advantage to three points at 5-2 at the 6:23 mark of the opening stanza.
That’s as close as the Falcons would get the remainder of the contest as the Bearcats built a 14-4 lead by the end of the opening stanza and 32-8 at halftime.
Ruston capped off its strong second quarter with a dunk by Aidan Anding, another 3-pointer by Parker and a putback dunk by Hudson accounting for all the points scored in the final 2:44 of the first half.
But despite his team’s solid offensive play, assistant coach Corey Dean, filling in for head coach Marcus Jackson, said the Bearcats’ winning effort against the Falcons was all about defense.
“We changed defense a lot tonight,” Deans said. “We’re working to play multiple defenses because I think that will help us out in district play. And when someone starts scoring on a different defense we’re trying, we’ll switch back to our base defense, which is man-to-man.”
Deans looked to his bench in the second half with Ruston leading 48-13 by the end of the third quarter and with a running clock in the fourth.
“The good thing about us is that all 10 guys have started multiple games for us this year, so I don’t look at them as starters or reserves,” Deans said. “Zheric Hill has started for us the last two weeks. Zetarrion (Sutton) came back for us today. That gives us depth. But Hill has made a seamless transition back to (being a) starter.”
Fabian Stringfellow topped Ruston with 14 points on the night while Parker added 12 for the Bearcats.
“Those two guys were key pieces to Ruston’s success last season,” Deans said. “Those guys are getting the hang of a new coach and a new system and hopefully that can continue by playing well on Friday (at Neville).”
Hudson chipped in with nine points for Ruston while blocking numerous Northwood shot attempts and Sutton and CJ Malone added five each.
Deans said that the Bearcats (14-10 overall and 2-0 in District 2-5A) are leaning toward thinking big in that upcoming game at Neville.
“Defending and winning the boards will be key,” Deans said. “Hopefully we can go to a bigger lineup trying to get more offensive boards. We used Zheric and Ahmad on the floor at the same time last week. Tonight it just helped out with our rotation to have them playing at opposite times.
“But rotating Zheric, Ahmad and Mason Delaney trying to keep two on the floor together will be key.”
