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Jackson-Milton falls to Lowellville shooting barrage

NORTH JACKSON — The Lowellville Rockets continued their pursuit of a Mahoning Valley Athletic Conference – Scarlet Tier title with a 74-56 victory in North Jackson on Friday.

The Rockets outscored Jackson-Milton 21-9 in the first quarter and never looked back. Juniors Anthony Lucente and Vinny Ballone tallied 19 points apiece, and Ballone equaled the Blue Jays’ output in the first.

“We came out firing,” Ballone said. “We were hitting all of our 3-pointers. We played well. We played as a team.

“We went into halftime with a 12-point lead. The coaches said that we had to keep our foot on the gas. That we had to keep going. We had to keep moving the ball, and play hard defense. That’s what we did.”

The Rockets built a 40-28 lead at the break, but the Blue Jays (5-8, 3-4) cut the deficit to single digits as the second half began.

Aiden Stanke scored a game-high 22 points. He had a beautiful spin-move. Then, he swished a 3-pointer. Ryan Romigh scored 15 points and also had a good take before Lowellville extended its advantage.

“I’m proud of my guys,” Jackson-Milton coach Steve Procopio said. ” They fought all night. We’re down four players. That’s a good basketball team that we just played. We have a good group of guys. Once we’re healthy, I think we have a pretty dangerous team.”

Brady Bunofsky and Lucente went to work down low. Justin Beeson nailed a three from the corner, and Lowellville was up 59-41 heading to the fourth.

“It’s always hard to get a win, in the league, in the opposing teams’ gym,” Lowellville coach Matt Olson said. ” Especially on a Friday night. They hit a lot of threes on us. Overall, I thought we did a pretty good job.”

The Rockets’ only loss in the MVAC was by 4 points to undefeated Springfield.

“We haven’t been able to get into a rhythm because of cancellations,” Olson said. ” We have big goals, but we’re not going to look ahead. We take it one game at a time.”

Ryan Hvisdak (10 points) started the fourth by draining one from downtown for Lowellville. Aaron Romigh (12 points) did the same for the Jays, and his teammate Logan Sokol stole the ball and laid it in.

Lucente took it strong to the hoop as the Rockets (11-2, 5-1) put another one in the win column.

“They came out hitting their shots,” Lucente said. ” Our coaches told us to go hard. We could have probably played better defense, but it’s hard to stop teams when they’re hitting their shots like that.

“We want to win the district, and hopefully go farther than that,” he continued. “When we work together, I don’t think anyone can stop us.”

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