Ironton overcomes tough shooting night to top Blue Devils

IRONTON — It always goes without saying, an ugly win is a whole lot better than a pretty loss.

Ironton didn’t have its prettiest game of the season but the Fighting Tigers were able to leave without a pretty loss as they beat the Gallia Academy Blue Devils 58-47 in an Ohio Valley Conference game on Monday.

“Listen. We got us a win. It wasn’t pretty. Our foul shots were atrocious tonight,” said Ironton coach Drew Stevens.

“We’re going to shoot foul shots for a lot of time in practice tomorrow. Those performances at the foul line will cost us a game somewhere. We got lucky.”

Gallia Academy shot 31 percent from the floor while Ironton was 45 percent from 2-point range (16- of 35) but 5 of 19 from behind the arc for 26 percent.

The Fighting Tigers’ biggest shooting struggles were from the foul line where they were just 11 of 24.

Stevens said Ironton (9-2, 5-1) had to battle and be patient against the taller Blue Devils zone defense.

“They were committing so far on the 1-3-1 that the backside was open. But they were so long we had a hard time getting to that backside,” said Stevens.

Ironton led 9-6 early and then used a pair of 3-pointers from Brycen Mullins to take a 17-6 lead with 1:21 on the clock.

Gallia cut the deficit to 17-10 on a basket by Gabe Hammons with 11 seconds on the clock.

The Blue Devils (5-7, 2-4) began the quarter with a 9-0 run and Colson Miller’s layup with 5:13 on the clock to tie the game at 17.

But Ironton outscored the Blue Devils 10-1 the rest of the half to take a 27-19 lead.

The Blue Devils came back and got within 27-26 on a 3-point play by Tripp Sola with 5:44 to go in the third quarter.

Stephen Ison’s trifecta at the 5:27 mark gave Ironton a 30-26 lead only to have Ty Reed answer with an 8-footer and it was 30-28.

The game remained close the rest of the quarter with Ironton getting a layup by Markel off a pass from Mullins to lead 42-39.

“They are a good basketball team. (Macen Meadows) can stroke the ball. They have a good guard. They caused us a lot of problems tonight,” said Stevens.

“Four or five minutes into the second quarter we’d only scored two points. I told them the first three, three and a half minutes of the third quarter we need to win. We didn’t win that time.”

But Ironton was able to win the fourth quarter which proved to be the difference.

Ashton Layne scored with 5:41 left to extend the lead to 46-39 and a backdoor feed from Mullins to Markel pushed the lead to 48-30.

The Blue Devils got within 48-44 but Ironton a free throw by Markel and two from Kayden Edwards opened up a 51-44 lead.

A steal and layup by Reed with 1:35 left made it 53-47, but Ironton scored the final 5 points of the game.

Ironton was able to survive despite converting just 8 of 17 free throws in the quarter.

 The Fighting Tigers had three players in double figures with Layne scoring 18 Markel 15 and Mullins 12.

Reed had 12 points for Gallia. 

Gallia Acad. 10     9   20     8  =  47

Ironton        17   10   15   16  =  58

GALLIA ACADEMY (5-7, 2-4): Ty Reed 5 0 2-3 12, Tripp Sola 2 1 1-1 8, Ethan Rose 1 0 0-0 2, Alex Blair 0 0 0-0 0, Brody Beaver 0 0 0-0 0, Grant Owens 2 0 4-4 6, Gabe Hammons 2 0 2-2 6, Macen Meadows 2 1 0-0 7, Colson Miller 1 0 4-6 6. Totals: 14 2 13-16 47. 3-pt. goals: 2-10. Rebounds: 29. Fouls: 19. Fouled out: Miller (4th 0:53), Meadows (4th 0:30).

IRONTON (9-2, 5-1): Maddix Markel 5 0 3-5 15 Ashton Layne 7 0 4-7 18, Brycen Mullins 3 2 0-2 12, Carson Freeman 0 1 1-2 4, Kayden Edwards 0 0 3-8 3, Stephen Ison 0 2 0-0 6, Zayne Williams 0 0 0-0 0. Totals: 16 5 11-24 54. 3-pt goals: 5-19. Rebounds: 27. Fouls: 10. Fouled out: None.