YELLOW SPRINGS — Legacy Christian enjoyed a rare road win, as the Knights and Yellow Springs battled aches, bruises and player suspensions on Tuesday night at Yellow Springs High.
With some players of their own sidelined with injuries, the visiting Knights (3-13, 3-6 in Metro Buckeye Conference play) struggled to an 8-6 first-quarter lead, then held a 26-17 lead at halftime, to record an eventual 56-40 win.
Missing at least one key player due to a suspension, Yellow Springs (3-10, 2-6 MBC) was dealing with its own team chemistry issues, but coach Nick Trimbach remained encouraged with his team’s play.
“I’m pleased, yeah. We had some players who were ineligible to play tonight, and lost 25 points per game among our starters,” Trimbach said. “So to have these young guys step up and compete — we actually scored more points against these guys than we did against them the last time we played — so that shows me that there’s been some growth among our team.”
Freshman guard Eli Eyrich led the Bulldogs in scoring with 14 points, and fellow frosh Jason Knemeyer finished with 11.
“We’re very young, so we’ve been using the rest of this season to hopefully prepare ourselves for a nice run next season,” Trimbach added.
When the two Metro Buckeye Conference foes battled on Dec. 10 in Xenia, Legacy came away with a 43-37 win.
This time, junior forward Charlie Luke led the Knights with a game-high 18 points, Jonathan Riddle finished with 17, and Payton Burdette finished with 10 to lead Legacy’s win.
“We haven’t seen a road win for a little while, so it’s always nice to get those, and especially in a league game,” Legacy coach Mark Erwin said. “We’ve got a lot of kids either hurt or sick right now. The sickness is going through LCA right now. We had a couple kids not with us this evening who are at home with the flu, so we’re down in numbers and we still have a few kids who are playing hurt.”
Erwin mentioned the road game woes for his Knights, they’re currently 2-8 in road games this season. They were o-6 on the road in 2019. Speaking of taking a few lumps, Legacy faces MBC leader Springfield Emmanuel Christian for its next game, a 7 p.m. contest on Friday, Jan. 24.
Yellow Springs stays at home for its next game. The Bulldogs will host Middletown Christian at 7:30 p.m., also on Jan. 24.
