WORTHINGTON -- After playing four games in a week, including a Saturday afternoon game following a Friday night contest, the Worthington Trojans boys basketball team might be forgiven for running on fumes these days.
Despite a sluggish offensive start to Saturday’s home game against Fairmont and a brief lull or two defensively later on, the Trojans took care of business with a 54-44 victory. It was their fourth straight win, and it upped their regular season record to 14-9.
“It seems that we’re going through some things where we have real good stretches, and then we have stretches where we’re forcing the issue on offense or have some lulls on defense,” said head coach Clint Meyer after Saturday’s 10-point win.
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But he wasn’t complaining. Overall, the Trojans played quite well on defense and, at one point, put nine consecutive stops on the Cardinals’ offense.
“I wasn’t sure what we’d get, being it’s an afternoon game after we just played last night,” Meyer said. “It’s just things we gotta battle through. But we did a pretty good job of doing that.”
Fairmont led 6-0 before the WHS offense got going, and over the first eight minutes of the game Worthington’s primary scoring threats, Karasharo Ojulu and Terbuto Ochothow, had just one point between them.
But suddenly, that changed. Ojulu connected on four 3-point shots in the first half and had 16 points at intermission, and Ochothow scored seven points in the first half as Worthington led 28-18.
Both Ojulu and Ochothow meshed 3-pointers early in the second half, and the Trojans were clearly in sync.
Worthington’s lead reached double figures before Fairmont, with its patient half-court game, cut the deficit to 46-43 on a Nicholas Eversman steal and drive for a layup. The Trojans played smartly after that to keep the Cards from getting closer.
Ojulu finished with 25 points and Ochothow scored 13. Ojulu had six steals. Ochothow had five assists and five rebounds.
Teammate Lucas Boever had four rebounds and three blocks to go along with 11 points. Brock Bruns had three assists.
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Eversman had 13 points for Fairmont, which fell to 10-13 with the loss. Wyatt Frank had 12.
Fairmont 18 44
Worthington 28 54
FAIRMONT (3FG-2FG-FT-TP) -- Eversman 0-6-1-13, Hested 1-0-0-3, Jorgensen 0-1-1-3, Schultz 0-3-0-6, Frank 0-6-1-12, Denney 1-1-0-5, Flohrs 0-0-1-1. Totals 2-17-4-44.
WORTHINGTON (3FG-2FG-FT-TP) -- K.Ojulu 5-3-4-25, Ochothow 2-3-1-13, Bruns 0-1-0-2, Weg 0-1-1-3, L.Boever 1-3-2-11, Brandner 0-0-0-0, Bickett 0-0-0-0. Totals 8-11-8-54.
