Euclid, Ohio- Friday night the Euclid Panthers (3-8) searched for their first conference win on their home floor. Cleveland Heights traveled to Euclid trying to raise their conference record to .500 after a rough blowout loss versus Mentor. Jayquan Stubbs led the Tigers to a 77-68 win at Euclid.
Both teams came out with a very high pace, Head Coach for Cleveland Heights Jr Bremer touched on it when speaking about the differences he sees in GCC play.
“It’s a really big difference. This conference is a lot faster, a lot more shooters," said Bremer. "All the teams Mentor, us Medina, Euclid as you just seen can knock it down.. It’s different styled league, we gotta prepare for it.”
Euclid and Heights both came out looking to speed the game up and get easy looks off their presses. Thai Duncan benefited from the early high pace with a breakaway dunk at around the two minute mark. Euclid led 14-13 after the dunk. Braylyn Irby and Iyan Bremer both got easy buckets at the rim to end the quarter. Heights went into the second up 23-16.
The high pace from the first quarter carried right over into the second. Mike Lewandowski knocked down back to back threes for Cleveland Heights in the second. His shots put the Tigers up 36-22 with about five to go in the half.
Cleveland Heights continued to press and forced numerous turnovers to close out the half. Stubbs started to get going in the second as he scored an and-one layup around one minute left in the quarter. Heights went into halftime up 41-29.
The third was huge for the Panthers, they outscored Cleveland Heights 25-15 and Duncan was a huge part of that. He scored 15 points in the quarter knocking down five threes in a row in the last four minutes of the quarter. Thai’s barrage of threes ended with a buzzer beater nearly at the logo to cut Heights’ lead to 56-54.
Duncan hit a contested fadeaway jumper at the five minute mark, Euclid trailed 62-60. From that point on Heights began to run away with the game. Stubbs scored a bucket down low to extend the lead to 68-62 with about 4:30 to go. Bremer sealed the deal with a midrange basket and an assist to Irby on an alley oop. After a couple more buckets from both teams Heights came out on top winning 77-68.
Cleveland Heights will travel to Akron to face St. Vincent-St. Mary at 7:30 PM on 1/16. With their win tonight the Tigers move to 8-5 overall and 3-3 in conference play.
Thai Duncan led all scorers with 25 points and 5 three point makes. Jayquan Stubbs finished with a 18 point double double for Heights.