Staff photo / Brian Yauger Grand Valley’s Evan Skates, left, dribbles past Mathews sophomore Caden Brubaker during Tuesday’s game at Mathews High School.

VIENNA — The Grand Valley boys basketball team continued its hot start to the season, earning a league win and taking down Mathews in a battle of Mustangs, 60-41, at Mathews High School.

The Mustangs in blue have a deep roster this season, so scoring can come from anywhere. On Tuesday, it was Solomon Schultz, who led with a game-high 16 points.

Evan Skates had 12 points and Carter Turk added 11.

“We’ve got a lot of guys that can put the ball in the hoop, so if any one guy has an off night, it certainly helps to have multiple scoring options,” Grand Valley coach Justin Turk said. “Our kids play hard. They get up and down the court. It’s been nothing but positive.

“We’ve got a lot of scoring options, and we kind of always hope teams press so that we can even let our athletes get out, get open and get some easy looks, and certainly that happened tonight.”

The win moves Grand Valley to 4-1 on the season and 3-1 in the league. Meanwhile, Mathews falls to 2-3.

The Mustangs in red have started the season on a tough stretch and are still trying to find their footing. All the while, Mathews is still searching for a replacement for Dom Toto. While guards have always been the program’s focus, this season’s team is driven more by its post players.

It’s going to take some time to feel things out, but coach Mike Weymer is confident in his group.

“I thought our compete level was there. We didn’t have any quit in our guys. We were still flying around, diving on the floor, communicating. I thought we rebounded well, especially in the second half,” Weymer said. “I’ve had (dominant) guards for a decade, and now we’re starting to transition where our post players are a bigger part of our program right now. On the fly, we’re trying to rework what we do, and it’s been a little bit of a process so far, but we have some time here over the holidays where I think we can kind of dig into it and get it cleaned up a little bit.”

Mathews travels to Badger on Tuesday.

Grand Valley closes the week out with a back-to-back against Middlefield Cardinal and Smithville. The latter is a big test for a Grand Valley team hoping to make a dent in the tournament this season.

After last year’s defeat in the district title game, Grand Valley has the taste in its mouth. Every game on its non-league schedule is meant to get them ready for the postseason and hopefully get that bad taste out.

“We certainly have that in our memory,” Turk said. “(Winning district is) our goal. We really upped our non-conference schedule this year. This weekend we play Smithville, who’s number one in our district. They were 22-4 last year. Every non-conference game other than Smithville is three divisions bigger than us, and that’s what we’re looking to do. Perry, Lakeside, Rocky River, we’re just trying to play as much competition as we can so that we’re ready. We certainly thought we had a good look at (a district title) last year, so that’s motivation.”