Staff photo / Brian Yauger Lordstown’s Charlie Cameron passes to a teammate past the defense of Bloomfield’s Nate Haught during Friday’s game in North Bloomfield.

NORTH BLOOMFIELD — In his first season at the helm of the Lordstown basketball program, coach Kyle Moore is out to show that this group is different from year’s past.

Describing it as a re-dedication, Moore is focused on developing a winning culture. The Red Devils got their all-important first win of the season on Friday, taking down Bloomfield, 63-20.

“When you start somewhere new, they gotta get used to you and you gotta build a different culture,” Moore said. “Everyone’s buying in, and I think that’s the biggest thing you see early. They’re buying in, they’re being coachable and picking each other up. That’s what breeds a winning culture, so we’re starting there.”

From the opening tip, Lordstown had the edge.

Ganon Force, who led Lordstown with 11 points, set the tone early with a big dunk. It’s something he’s tried in practice, to varying success, but he connected when it counts.

“I’m not gonna lie, Ganon has not dunked all year,” Moore said. “He tries in practice, he misses eight or 10 in a row, and he’s like, ‘no I got it.’ I’m like, ‘You don’t,’ so to see them punch it early (was awesome.) My assistant (Dontrell Lawrence) was like, ‘Ganon is gonna dunk today,’ and he dunked it within three minutes of the game. We definitely have athletes, we’ve got size, it just has to translate.”

Colton Merlino led the Cardinals with eight points.

In the waning seconds of the third quarter, Bloomfield’s Mason Pequignot heaved up a shot from half court, falling in at the buzzer much to the delight of everyone in the building, even the Red Devils. A good shot is a good shot.

“I told them to just start shooting those more often if that’s what’s going in tonight,” Cardinals coach Joe Abramovich said.

Pequignot and Jackson Foster each had six points.

After losing a group of seniors who were vocal and strong leaders, Bloomfield is still searching for someone to fill that vacuum.

“There’s a couple guys right now I could see that they could lead by example, and I’m trying to get them to vocalize a little more,” Abramovich said. “At the end of the day, my voice is shot, so I need somebody else to help me out on the floor and be my general on the floor, so I’m still looking for it.

“There’s a couple guys that would be really good for it. I’m just continuing to encourage them all to take that step forward.”

While developing their culture, that doesn’t mean the Red Devils are treating this as a rebuilding year. Moore thinks this group has a chance to compete in the league and is excited to see what they can do.

“We want constant improvement, staying positive, being together, and honestly, being competitive to our conference,” Moore said. “In recent years, we’ve kind of been the young team, we’ve been the ones that have freshmen and sophomores playing. We have a different identity. We’ve got a lot of juniors and seniors, so we have a lot more experience. For me, my goal is to be competitive in this conference. I think we can get some wins in the conference. A lot of teams lost a lot, so I think we can be competitive.”

Up next, the Red Devils (1-1) face Chalker in Southington.