MARTINSVILLE — The offense started quickly and the defense remained miserly as Seymour’s boys basketball team defeated Martinsville 47-36 in a solid bounce-back performance Saturday night.
Powered by a game-high 18 points by Landon Fritsch, the Owls built and maintained a double-digit lead over the final three quarters of the contest. Seymour’s advantage grew to 20 points late in the third quarter.
The Owls’ defense, meanwhile, kept its opponent under 40 points for the third time in the last four games by limiting the host Artesians to just 12 field goals on 29 attempts (41%).
All in all, the victory impressed Seymour head coach Kirk Manns, who appreciated the effort given by his players a night after a draining, physical loss to Floyd Central, ranked No. 15 in the weekly coaches’ poll.
“Tonight’s a much bigger win than people may realize,” Manns said. “Playing against not just a good team but a very, very good team takes a lot of energy. There was a lot of emotion last night. A lot of our guys logged heavy minutes. You only have so much in the tank, and we were a little fatigued tonight. Thankfully, we got off to a good start offensively.”
Two 3s by Fritsch gave Seymour an early 8-2 lead. A 10-0 run consisting of a third Fritsch 3-pointer, a driving layup by Charlie Longmeier, an Andrew Levine 3-pointer and a jumper by Casey Regruth expanded the Owls’ lead to 21-8 early in the second quarter.
Fritsch nailed his fourth 3-pointer to open the second half and Marcus Brooks scored four consecutive points to boost the advantage to 37-20.
Levine then added a layup before Eli Meyer made two foul shots to give Seymour an insurmountable 41-21 lead with two minutes to go in the third quarter.
The fatigue Manns expected finally affected the Owls in the fourth quarter. Seven turnovers and 1-for-6 shooting allowed Martinsville to reduce the deficit to 11, but the final result was never in doubt.
“In the fourth quarter, it was time to play with a lead, and we’re learning how to do that,” Manns said. “We’re learning how to do a lot of things, but we closed the game out. We accomplished what we needed to accomplish.”
Fritsch ended the night 7-for-10 from the field. Combined with his hot shooting the night before against Floyd Central, the junior scored 39 points on 15-for-23 shooting, including nine 3-pointers, during the weekend’s two games.
“He had a good offensive weekend, no doubt about that,” Manns said. “He really got us going tonight. He seems to be getting that rhythm that he needs.”
Brooks notched 10 points, his 10th double-digit scoring effort of the season. Levine added eight points, while Meyer finished with seven points and a game-high eight rebounds.
Saturday’s win improved Seymour’s overall record to 10-5, marking the program’s first back-to-back seasons with 10 or more wins since 2007-08, which was the fourth season in a run by former coach Scott Miller’s teams that ended with 16, 15, 15 and 10 wins.
Last season, the Owls finished with a 10-12 record with the 10th win coming in the 19th game.
“It feels good, but the goal is to finish this out,” Manns said. “We’ve got seven regular-season games left, about one month, before the sectionals start. We’ve got to get better during those games. If we don’t, it’s going to be awfully hard to get things done in the sectional. If we keep getting better, we reduce that gap. I think we can do it, but it’s up to these guys. Do they want to continue to work? If they do, we’re going to keep getting better. I hope we continue to gain momentum. We started the incline (last) weekend, and we went forward again this weekend.”