LEXINGTON — Scott Hamilton has drawn up a lot of plays during his 11 seasons at Lexington High School.
Not even the winningest coach in the school’s history could have drawn up a better Senior Night on Friday. His Minutemen jumped out early and cruised past Mount Vernon, 65-35, in an Ohio Cardinal Conference clash — the final home game for five Lexington seniors.
“It went really well,” said Hamilton, now 176-86 in his Lexington tenure. “We got off to a good start. I thought we had them backpedaling a little bit.”
That may be the biggest understatement of the season for a Lexington team now 16-2 overall and still alone in first place in the league at 11-1.
The Minutemen led 16-3 after one quarter and 27-5 at the half, allowing the Yellow Jackets (6-12, 4-9) to hit just 2-of-23 field goals in the first 16 minutes.
Mount Vernon launhced 17 three-point attempts in the first half against a much taller Lexington team and connected on just one.
Mount Vernon coach Nick Coon thought his team settled for outside looks in the first half.
“For some reason, we fell into a trap of shooting a lot of threes. Maybe that was their size, keeping us out of the paint. But I thought we had opportunities to drive that we didn’t take. And we shot it poorly too. We had a lot of open looks. We just shot it poorly,” Coon said.
Mount Vernon-Lexington box score
The one-sided nature of the game allowed Hamilton the luxury of starting all five seniors going into the fourth quarter — Hudson Moore, Baden Forup, Alex Depperschmidt, A.J. Young and Jaxx Lamp.
It also allowed him to substitute for all five midway through the period — generating a roar from a capacity crowd that saw Lexington go 9-1 at home in the first season in their new gym.
“I have never been a guy to start all the seniors at the beginning of a game. But at some point, I do have the intention of getting all the seniors in there,” Hamilton said.
“Tonight, it worked out great. We got all those guys in there to start the fourth quarter and we got them out to a lot of applause,” he said.
“Hudson Moore has been with me since he was a freshman, so this is his fourth year playing with me. Most of the other guys got moved up as sophomores when we graduated everyone,” Hamilton said.
“So we have been through some tough times. The first year, when they were sophomores on varsity, we won four games the entire season. Last year, we had a successful season (15-10), but we graduated a couple of seniors, so it was these guys’ turn.
“It’s been a special group all the way around,” Hamilton said.
Friday night scores
Lexington 65, Mount Vernon 35
Mansfield Senior 58, Madison 50
New Philadelphia 57, Wooster 49
Ashland 50, West Holmes 46
Current standings
Lexington 16-2/11-1
New Philadelphia 13-4/11-2
Mansfield Senior 11-6/9-3
Wooster 8-11/6-7
Madison 8-10/5-8
Mount Vernon 6-12/4-9
Ashland 6-13/4-9
West Holmes 2-17/1-12
Coon knew his team faced a tall task playing Lexington on Senior Night.
“They are big, physical and strong and then they had a great crowd for Senior Night,” Coon said. “They came out and played with a lot of fire and intensity and we didn’t match that, especially in the first half.
“If you get down that big to a good team like that … we don’t have the margin for error to be able to overcome stuff like that very often,” he said.
STATISTICALLY SPEAKING: Lexington dominated the stat sheet as much as it did the scoreboard.
Forup, a 6-7 post, finished with 18 points on 9-of-13 shooting and 12 rebounds in 24 minutes. Freshman Brayden Fogle (6-4) had 18 points and nine rebounds in 23 minutes. Junior Elijah Hudson (6-8) had 10 points and 18 rebounds in 19 minutes.
Hudson Rohler was the only Mount Vernon player in double figures with 14 points.
Lexington shot 46 percent from the field (29-63), including 5-of-18 triples. Mount Vernon finished shooting 28 percent (14-50), including 3-of-26 behind the arc.
The Minutemen had a 53-24 edge in rebounding and led the Yellow Jackets in second-chance points, 25-0, and points in the paint, 40-22. Lexington committed 13 turnovers, compared to 12 for Mount Vernon.
UP NEXT: Lexington is at Wooster next Friday night in another OCC game. The Generals are 8-11, 6-7 after a 57-49 loss to New Philadelphia (13-4, 11-2) on Friday night.
Mount Vernon hosts Marion Harding on Tuesday in a non-league game.
