High school basketball: Wildly inconsistent Cloverleaf boys fall to Norton

WESTFIELD TWP. — Nine fantastic minutes weren't enough to offset 23 awful ones for the Cloverleaf boys basketball team. Nearly rallying from double-digit deficits in each half Tuesday, the wildly inconsistent Colts ran out of time in a disappointing 59-54 Metro Athletic Conference loss to rival Norton, which was playing for the first time since Dec. 10. Cloverleaf (5-5, 3-2) cut a 19-point deficit to three with 20 seconds remaining but never had the ball with a chance to tie or take the lead because the Panthers (3-2, 2-1) made enough free throws in the waning moments. "I told those guys, 'Hey, you give me that effort from the fourth quarter all the time, we're going to win some games,"' Colts coach Jack Banks said. Cloverleaf scored 25 points in the fourth quarter after shooting just 11-for-31 (.355) through 24 minutes. The Colts also forced seven turnovers in the period with a half-court trap, but that may not have been needed if not for a technical foul in a six-point game that fueled a 15-1 Panthers run in the third quarter. Ashton Newton returned from a three-game injury absence to finish with 18 points on 7-for-20 shooting and seven rebounds. Philip Hamilton added 15 points and six assists, while 6-foot-8 center Logan Forbes was double-teamed all night against an opponent with no one taller than 6-1 and ended up with six points and 12 rebounds. Struggling mightily to get the ball inside to Forbes and getting saved by Hamilton's nine first-half points, the Colts trailed 24-11 with 1:03 left in the first half before embarking on a wild 9-0 run capped by a Marty Moran 3-pointer at the halftime buzzer. The technical came after forward Nolan Dobben scored while being fouled to give Norton a 28-22 lead. The Panthers then scored 13 of the next 14 points to lead 41-23. "Both teams are very similar with grind-it-out kind of offenses," Banks said. "I'm a little disappointed in our kids, especially because (Norton) had gone almost a month without playing a game. To me, that's very disappointing." Defending MAC champion Norton, which lost all five starters to graduation, got 21 points from wing Cole Newman, 17 from Dobben and six points, 10 rebounds and six assists from sophomore point guard Noah Willig. The Panthers shot 20-for-39, which included a 2-for-12 second quarter. While Norton obviously couldn't finish the Colts sooner, the Panthers did enough to prevent a collapse. "Fifty-fifty balls, the first half we didn't get any and the second half they seemed to come all over," Banks said. Contact Albert Grindle at (330) 721-4043 or agrindle@medina-gazette.com. Norton 59, Cloverleaf 54 NORTON &emsp;&emsp;17 7 17 18 — 59 CLOVERLEAF &emsp;&emsp;9 11 9 25 — 54 Norton — Cole Newman 7-3-21, Nolan Dobben 7-2-17, Luke Dobbins 1-3-5, Thomas Hoffman 0-0-0, Noah Willig 3-0-6, Jayshawn Cheatham 1-4-6, Mason Ethridge 1-0-2, David Moore 0-2-2, Andrew Lewis 0-0-0. TOTALS: 20-14-59. Cloverleaf — Blake Benko 2-2-8, Dylan Bresnahan 0-0-0, Logan Forbes 0-6-6, Dylan Pavlovicz 1-0-2, Philip Hamilton 5-4-15, Ashton Newton 7-4-18, Connor Baith 0-0-0, Marty Moran 1-0-3, Steven Manbeck 1-0-2. TOTALS: 17-16-54. 3-point goals — Newman 4, Dobben, Benko 2, Hamilton, Moran. Rebounds — Norton 31 (Willig 10), Cloverleaf 30 (Forbes 12). Assists — Norton 14 (Willig 6), Cloverleaf 9 (Hamilton 6). Records — Norton (3-2, 2-1), Cloverleaf (5-5, 3-2). Junior varsity — Cloverleaf 50, Norton 47 (C: Ty Novak 21).