Mansfield Sr. snaps Ashland's win streak with 75-64 win

MANSFIELD - The Ashland Arrows' offense looked dominant Friday night, shooting 31-of-52 from the field and 60 percent from behind the arc. That would spell doom for most teams, but Mansfield Senior didn't flinch.

Thanks to a dominant performance from Mario Young, the Tygers came away with a 75-64 victory.

After trading leads in the opening minutes, the Tygers began to pull away with a nine-point burst midway through the first quarter to take an 11-4 lead. The Tygers maintained the lead throughout the rest of the game, but were never able to fully pull away due to Ashland's skillful 3-point shooting.

Mansfield coach JT Reese said Ashland's 3-point scoring was a calculated risk.

"We understand with the up-and-down style of play we have we're going to give up some things," Reese said. "But you want to calculate those risks and minimize them as much as possible. I thought we changed defenses enough to where they couldn't get a beat on what was going on."

Reese's strategy to consistently rotate defenses worked like gangbusters in the first half, with the Tygers forcing 13 turnovers.

"I thought defensively we couldn't allow Ashland to play how they practice," Reese said. "The only way to do that is apply pressure everywhere and not do what they normally do."

Meanwhile, Young tore through the Arrows' defense with 27 points, 6 rebounds and 6 assists. His final point came off a steal and a thunderous one-armed dunk with 19 seconds left in the game.

"He was in attack mode," Reese said. "That's what we wanted to do was be in attack mode offensively, no matter where we were."

The win puts Mansfield Senior in third place in the Ohio Cardinal Conference behind Lexington (10-2) and Wooster (10-3). The Tygers travel to Lexington on Feb 19, and a win could shake up the standings in the final days of the regular season.

Mansfield Senior returns to action 6 p.m. Saturday night on the road against Dunbar.