FAIRBORN — After some offensive struggles the last several games, Sidney had its best offensive game of the season on Tuesday.
The Yellow Jackets scored from the start and earned an 80-66 victory over Fairborn in a Miami Valley League game at Baker Middle School. Sidney (7-5, 6-4 MVL) further solidified its lead in the MVL Valley Division with the victory; the other four teams in the division have at least five league losses.
Sidney hadn’t scored more than 60 points since the first week of December and was held to a season low in a 39-24 loss to MVL leader Tippecanoe last Tuesday.
But the squad hit shots from the start against Fairborn (3-8, 3-6) and didn’t stop hitting them for the rest of a fast-paced game.
Sidney sophomore guard Jayce Daniel started his first game on Tuesday and scored a career-high 23 points.
“Jayce came in and gave us the shooting we’ve desperately been looking for,” Sidney coach John Willoughby said. “It’s been a few games where teams have been playing zone against us, we get good shots and we’re just not making them. It was nice to see our first few go in against the zone.”
A’zon Steele, a sophomore guard who transferred from Lehman Catholic, started the first 11 games of the season. Ohio High School Athletic Association rules limit transfers to playing the first half of the season. Steele could miss the remainder of the season, though his family is seeking an exception to the rule so he play in the second half.
Willoughby said Daniel filled Steele’s role well on Tuesday.
“I think Jayce and A’zon are similar in the way they play, so it wasn’t that big of an adjustment,” Willoughby said. “The only adjustment is our bench. We had to bring up a JV player to be our seventh man.”
Sidney senior forward Sam Reynolds led Sidney with 24 points; he shot 14 for 14 from the free-throw line. Sophomore guard Julius Spradling scored 15 and senior guard Myles Vordemark scored 10.
“Our energy was up,” Reynolds said. “We had high intensity. We were just ready to roll. In the second half, we went into the locker room and said we have to pick up the energy.”
Sidney finished the first quarter on a 12-2 run to take a 20-10 lead over the Skyhawks and pushed their lead to 18 before Fairborn cut the gap to 34-25 at halftime.
But Reynolds scored 12 points in the third to lead a 27-20 scoring edge which pushed the lead to 61-45 heading into the fourth.
Reynolds was effective creating shots on penetration to compliment the 3’s and jump shots Daniel, Vordemark and Spradling made.
“That’s great to see from Sam,” Willoughby said. “He can do that well. He hasn’t done that for a while. We ran some isolations for him. He had a great game all around, guarded their top scorer, (Ty) Williams, really well. He was very efficient on the offensive end.”
Willoughby said he was pleased Sidney kept up its energy in the second half, with its five starters playing most of the game.
“They’re good at that,” Willoughby said. “It’s amazing how hard they play, how quick they play and how they’re able to play the whole game. That’s probably one of our best attributes.
“Our thing the last three or so games, we haven’t been up-and-down the floor like we can. We’ve been trying to press to get us going, but after a team makes a basket, we’ll just (let up). We want to keep going, and I thought we did that better tonight.
“… To be good, you need a couple of kids to depend on to go out and get you some baskets when you need them. Our last few games, we didn’t know where to go to, because nobody was really pushing or executing our plays as fast as we should. That’s what we concentrated on yesterday in practice, and we looked at lot better tonight.”
Sidney will try to keep up Tuesday’s offensive improvement on Friday when it hosts archrival Piqua (10-2, 7-2 MVL Miami). The Indians beat Sidney 56-44 on Dec. 2 in Piqua.
Piqua senior guard Dre’Sean Roberts averages an MVL-best 18.3 points per game while two other players, including senior guard Bryson Roberts, average eight or more points per game.
“We’ve got to contain their two Roberts guards,” Willoughby said. “They really shut us down. We’re going to take a good look at (the Dec. 2 game). I was puzzled by that. That was beginning of some of our offensive struggles.
“We’ve got to get the tempo where we want it at, make good decisions with the ball. I think we did that for the most part tonight. Never going to be perfect on that, but for the most part, I thought we shared the ball for an easier shot.”
