Roth, Trojans dominate against BG

Max Roth had a bit of a score to settle Tuesday night.And he brought a few of his friends along to help.Roth scored 16 points, three of his Findlay High teammates combined for 49 more and the Trojans overcame a bit of a sluggish start to dominate the middle two quarters and beat Bowling Green, coached by Max Roth's older brother Mason, 78-56 in a nonleague matchup at the FHS Gymnasium."I guess it was kind of a payback for all the years he and his friends beat up on me (during pick-up-games), so I'll take it," Max Roth said."It was a little weird at first going against him and his assistant (Adam Newcomer, a McComb graduate along with Mason Roth). Once we got going, though, it was kinda special playing against them and seeing them tonight."Mason Roth knew little brother, averaging close to 20 points a game, was one of the top players for Findlay. He admitted, though, that his primary focus was on a different number in the Trojans' lineup."We really put an emphasis on Jake Bishop, and obviously we did not do a very good job," Mason Roth said after Bishop lit BG up for a game-high 25 points. "He's really good."(Findlay) is hard to guard. They spread us out. I thought we did a pretty good job in the first quarter. We were paying attention to details and then it just got away from us. They hit a big flurry and we didn't recover."Bowling Green (8-7) had won seven of 10 games entering Tuesday's matchup and from the opening tip the Bobcats looked like a team full of promise and potential.Jabari Conway, a 6-foot-8 junior, scored eight of his team-high 17 points in the first quarter, Jake Amspoker ended the period with a buzzer-beating 3-pointer, and when Brayden Freyman and Brock Hastings opened the second quarter with back-to-back 3's, BG led 26-21.Findlay suddenly caught fire, though, cranking up the defensive pressure, turning turnovers into transition baskets, and finding the hot hand.And that hot hand belonged to Bishop.After Max Roth scored five straight points to tie the game 26-26, Bishop bombed in one 3-pointer after a Terrion Ross steal, nailed another 3 off a Justin Roth assist, then hit two more 3's back-to-back to put Findlay up 42-31.Brock Makrancy then banked in a basket just before the halftime buzzer, capping a 23-5 Findlay surge that turned that five-point deficit into a 13-point lead, 44-31."We were a step slow mentally, We just weren't sharp," HS coach Jim Rucki said of the Trojans slow start."That's what you worry about in these kind of games, where you'd just played really well (a 77-50 win over Toledo St. John's last Friday) and everybody starts telling you how great you. We didn't have school yesterday so we didn't have practice. We were just a little bit sluggish, not really focused, and Bowling Green took advantage. They played well early. They were ready and they competed, which I expected them to, and it took us a while to get going."With the lead and momentum in hand, Findlay pushed its lead to 20 points in the third quarter and cruised home from there."We got some steals, we got in transition and we hit some shots," said Rucki, who achieved his 500th career win on Friday and on Tuesday improved his record at Findlay to 341-174, one win shy of tying Carl Bachman as the winningest coach in FHS boys basketball history."It wasn't quite as efficient as we'd like it to be, but we took care of what we had to take care of."Bishop missed his first two 3-point attempts, but was 4-for-4 on 3-pointers in the second quarter and 5-of-8 for the game."We did not share the ball quite as well in the first half as we have when we're really at our best, but we still found him," Rucki said."When the ball was going in for him, we were smart enough to get him a couple of shots."Max Roth scored seven of his 16 points in the second quarter as well. Ross had 12 points and seven rebounds. Justin Roth, who has had three nine-assist games in the past three weeks, had a season-high 12 points on Tuesday.Findlay, which has won 10 of 11 games to improve to 11-4 on the season, faces a major test on Friday when the Trojans travel to Toledo Whitmer for a Three Rivers Athletic Conference game against the Panthers. Whitmer (9-3, 6-2 TRAC) beat Findlay 68-61 in a league game in December, and last Friday handed league-leading and state-ranked Lima Senior its only TRAC loss, 60-57.BOWLING GREEN (8-7)Jackson 3-10 0-0 6, Furnas 0-0 0-0 0, Hastings 1-6 2-2 5, Conway 8-11 1-1 17, Freyman 2-4 2-2 7, Cook 0-0 0-0 0, Brandt 3-5 0-0 7, Amspoker 1-1 0-0 3, Suelzer 2-3 0-0 5, Kress 1-3 0-0 2, Studer 0-0 0-0 0, Prater 2-3 0-0 4. TOTALS: 23-47 5-5—56.FINDLAY (11-4)J. Roth 5-7 0-0 12, Ross 5-8 1-2 12, M. Roth 7-17 2-2 16, Bishop 10-14 0-0 25, S. Weihrauch 2-3 0-0 4, Makrancy 1-7 0-0 2, Hill 2-2 0-0 4, Mueller 0-0 0-0 0, Ernst 0-0 0-0 0, R. Montgomery 1-2 0-0 3, L. Weihrauch 0-1 0-0 0, Cordonnier 0-0 0-0 0. TOTALS: 33-61 3-40—78Bowling Green 20 11 8 17—56Findlay 17 27 16 18—783-Point GOALS: Findlay 9-21 (J. Roth 2-3, Ross 1-1, M. Roth 0-3, Bishop 5-8, Makrancy 0-3R. Montgomery 1-2, , L. Weihrauch 0-1); Bowling Green 5-17 (Brandt 1-3, Hastings 1-5, Amspoker 1-1, Suelzer 1-2, Freyman 1-3, Kress 0-2, Prater 0-1).REBOUNDS: Findlay 29 (S. Weihrauch 8, Ross 7); Bowling Green 23 (Jackson 5, Conway 4, Suelzer 4).TURNOVERS: Findlay 7, Bowling Green 15.FRESHMAN: Findlay 55-28.