Senior CJ Olding rises for three of his game-high 25 points in Lehman’s comeback 61-53 win Tuesday over Milton Union. (Press Pros Feature Photos)
Left for dead after the first half, Lehman’s pressure defense and a brilliant shooting performance by senior CJ Olding sparked the Cavaliers to a come-from-behind Tuesday win over Milton Union.
West Milton, OH – For the first eighteen minutes of Tuesday night’s Three Rivers Conference contest between visiting Lehman and Milton Union, the 12-2 Cavaliers toyed around with every conceivable way you can lose a basketball game.
They were passive and lethargic in attacking a newly-devised 3-2 zone by Milton coach Rusty Berner and the Bulldogs.
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24-point-per-game scorer Shane Frantz came out as cold as the muffler on your car in the parking lot…1 for his first 6 shots from the field.
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Poor shooting, overall, and impatience with shot selection against that zone.
They were lazy and slow on defense, late with rotations, allowing Milton’s junior shooter, Levi Brumbaugh, one open look after another…which he canned.
They were just dead-looking, coming off back-to-back losses over the past five days to Urbana and Northridge, their first two losses of the season.
“It didn’t look good, no question,” said Cavaliers first-year coach Jeremy Hughes. “We didn’t have a lot of life.”
They trailed Milton 24-20 at the break.
But bleak as it looked against the 4-9 Bulldogs, senior CJ Olding and whatever got into the rest of them at halftime came roaring out of the locker room in the second half to outscore Milton 30-16 over the first twelve minutes, force double-digit turnovers, and exposed what coach Rusty Berner later referred to as “our youth and inexperience.” Lehman (13-2, 7-1 in conference) completely flipped the switch in the second half behind Olding’s 25 points and won going away, 61-53.
Lehman’s Gus Richard steals the basketball from Milton’s Carson Fulton for a transition bucket during the Cavliers’ 10-0 run in the fourth quarter.
“I don’t know why we came out so dead, except the last couple of games (Urbana and Northridge) were hard on us,” said Olding, post-game. “We got down on ourselves a bit, and all the confidence seemed gone for everybody. But Coach came in at the half and told us what we needed to do, and then the leaders had to step up and lead.”
A couple of things.
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One, Lehman had to find a way to shut down Milton’s exciting junior Levi Brumbaugh, who plays the game with a mouthful of braces and a beautiful jump shot. Brumbaugh blistered the nets in the first half for 12 points on 5 of 6 shooting from the field…then matched that output in the second half (10 of 16 for the game) for a team-high 24 points.
Milton’s fine junior shooter, Levi Brumbaugh, led the Bulldogs with 24 points.
Two, the Cavaliers had to find some energy, especially on defense, to make Milton’s offensive effort uncomfortable and hurried. They never really did corral Brumbaugh, but after trailing by four in the halftime locker room it didn’t take Hughes long to turn up the heat.
Milton came out shooting, went on a 7-0 run, and at one point built a 35-26 lead before Hughes signaled timeout and called for the pressure. Just as quick as he did, the Cavaliers went on a 10-2 run of their own and tied the game at 37-37 by period’s end.
Milton began to turn the ball over in bunches against that press to start the fourth, CJ Olding scored on three consecutive run-outs to push the score to 47-37, and the Cavaliers proceeded to outscore the Bulldogs with a 24-10 run before Milton finally scored 8 of the game’s last twelve points to cut the winning margin to 61-53. Lehman outscored the Bulldogs 41-24 in the second half, shooting 42% for the game.
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But the catalyst was Olding, who when he got started ignited proportionate contributions from Frantz (14 pts), and Evan O’Leary (10 pts).
For Milton, Levi Brumbaugh finished with 24 points, and Wes Schommer and Caron Fulton each had 8.
“For lack of anything better, I think we’re coming off an emotional gauntlet,” said Jeremy Hughes. “We were coming off the emotional overtime win over Troy Christian, then the two losses to Urbana and Northridge, and the Urbana loss was especially tough because we were up going into the fourth quarter. Urbana went on a 20-4 run and we just lost our identity. And Northridge just hit us in the mouth. It was like playing against Mike Tyson.
“So we had to come back to practice and turn up the intensity. First half tonight our defense was just not what it was for the first half of the season. So every now and then I have to dig into the old Barry Egan book and come up with one of those inspirational talks,” he added with a wink. “And tonight it worked out for us.”
And to be fair, this is not the Lehman team that ran out to that impressive 10-0 start, playing presently without their best athlete and inspirational leader, Turner Lachey. Lachey transferred at the end of the semester to attend a baseball academy in Nashville, where he’ll complete his senior season.
Milton’s defense made it tough on Shane Frantz at the outset, but the Cavs’ top scorer rebounded to finish with 14 points.
“There’s no question that was tough for us to absorb, and it was hard for the kids to say goodbye to a friend and teammate like that,” said Hughes. “But Evan O’leary did a great job for us tonight, stepping up in that role as an active leader.
“And as a basketball coach it would be hard for me to be selfish and tell him that he can’t pursue his dream to play college baseball for the sake of high school basketball. I wish him the best.”
In the other locker room down the hall Rusty Berner acknowledged that his team is young, going through some growing pains, and just lost the plan and patience they used to box up Lehman in the first half and amass the 24-20 halftime lead. But he could smile at the growth and performance of Levi Brumbaugh, who’s just learning to touch his potential as a shooter and basketball player.
“He’s really grown this junior year. This whole crew is young and without a lot of varsity experience,” said Berner. “We’ve only got one senior, so Levi’s learning to balance scoring with handling the ball and dishing it to other shooters. Last game he had 20 points and 10 assists. That’s literally never happened in the history of our school.”
The ten turnovers in the fourth quarter (18 for the game) were tragic, the turning point in the game for Milton.
“I don’t know why they waited so long to press,” Berner added with a chuckle. “But that’s been our season. If you watch our games we have these little glitches where we panic. We kept the pace where we wanted it in the first half, and at the start of the second. But they’re more athletic than us, they’ve got guys that can really go, and I thought we did a good job of making them slow down and sleep walk a little bit.
“We had seen them against zone defense and we thought it would work. And we threw some different things at them in the second half with our matchup. But when good teams aren’t doing it with their offense they do it with their defense, and that’s what they did in the second half.”
Lehman improves to 13-2 before a home matchup with Miami East on Friday night. Olding and teammate Jackson Kennedy were both nursing some bruises they suffered on hard fouls Tuesday, but both got up and returned to the game. Needless to say, they’ll be ready come the Vikings.
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