ROMNEY, W.Va. — Mountain Ridge made Hampshire earn every point on Tuesday night.
The Miners’ man-to-man defense and length kept the Trojans away from the basket, Hampshire was cold from the field and Mountain Ridge secured nearly every defensive rebound.
To make matters more difficult for the Trojans, Mountain Ridge defended without fouling, and Hampshire didn’t shoot a free throw until the fourth quarter.
Mountain Ridge held Hampshire to 15 points through three quarters, John Delaney and Cam Breighner scored in double figures on the other end of the floor, and the fourth-ranked Miners rolled to a 50-27 road victory on Tuesday night.
“We were pleased with our intensity tonight,” Mountain Ridge head coach Tim Nightengale said. “Sometimes you come over here and you’re just real flat after that bus ride, but our kids, we asked them to play hard tonight and we got that from them.”
Mountain Ridge (3-1) got back in the win column after an eight-day layoff following a loss to Southern its last time out.
Delaney scored a game-high 13 points, and Breighner added 11. AJ Lauder and Levi Clise scored seven each.
Hampshire (0-7) was paced by Matt Medina’s 11 points and Chase Brill’s nine off the bench.
“Mountain Ridge is a great team, well-coached team,” Hampshire head coach Danny Alkire said. “They obviously have us on size. I think four of their starters are taller than five of our starters or a whole team. … We struggle to rebound, even if we were boxing out. We did not make shots at all.”
Points were hard to come by for Hampshire. Other than Medina, Channing Wilt was the only other starter to score with two points.
Mountain Ridge led 14-5 after the first quarter, 25-9 at the half and 37-15 entering the fourth. The score was 6-5 Miners before a 15-0 run put the Trojans in a 21-5 hole.
“We’ve been really working on trying to get into gaps, stop paint touches from the drive and closing out on shooters and getting good help defense,” Nightengale said of what the keys were defensively. “That’s been an emphasis in practices for us. They executed that tonight. We’re improving.”
Hampshire did have success with a 1-3-1 zone defense in the second half.
Mountain Ridge led 35-13 at the 4:27 mark of the third quarter, and the Trojans held the Miners to just two points the rest of the quarter.
Back-to-back 3s by Tanner Netzer and Brill pulled Hampshire within 37-21 with 5:38 remaining before Mountain Ridge scored 13 of the final 19 points.
“This is the first time we’ve ran a 1-3-1 this year,” Alkire said. “And for not doing it in live action in a game, I think we did pretty well with it. It did slow them down.”
Mountain Ridge called several timeouts in the second half to work on its zone offense.
There were flashes of progress, like when Breighner caught the ball at the high post and found a cutting Delaney in the soft spot of the zone along the baseline for an easy layup late in the game.
“That’s the first time we’ve seen a 1-3-1, and we haven’t worked on it in practice,” Nightengale said. “We had four or five great passes, looking for each other, being unselfish.”
Mountain Ridge hosts Chestnut Ridge, Pennsylvania, next on Friday at 7:15 p.m.
Hampshire is at Lewis County on Friday at 6 p.m.