BEAVERCREEK — Early on during Tuesday’s game, Xenia called two timeouts through the initial two minutes.
The team didn’t score its first basket until close to midway in the first quarter and it didn’t get better from there for the Bucs as Beavercreek pounced quickly in route to a dominating 84-26 win in non-league play.
Adam Duvall led the Beavers with 22 points and Gabe Phillips had 20 as the duo’s size and strength were far too much for Xenia to handle at any point in the game.
Xenia head coach Mike Arlinghaus had a simple response when asked what went well: “Nothing.”
“We did not show up,” he said. “We knew we needed to come out and play well early and would not be able to play from behind against these guys. Trying to play catch-up against a team that talented, they have a much bigger size advantage and they did not try to do anything they did not need to do.”
Duvall and Phillips, who listed at 6 foot 7 inches and 6 foot 8 inches, respectively, towered over any player the Bucs could put on the floor and had 16 made field goals between them. The total doubled Xenia’s output as a team with eight.
“They did a good job of attacking us and using their strengths and we did not slow it down and the game got out of hand,” Arlinghaus said.
Beavercreek (8-6) led 14-0 within three minutes of the opening tip and built a 26-9 advantage after the first eight minutes.
The lead grew to 48-15 at halftime as Duvall matched Xenia’s point total in both the first and second quarters by himself.
Xenia (4-9) briefly got the lead back under 30 points in the third quarter, but a three-pointer by Duvall with 1:57 left to go in the quarter pushed Beavercreek ahead by 37 and began a running clock for the remainder of the game.
Beavercreek won each of the first individual quarters by at least 15 points.
Juan Underwood had eight points to lead Xenia, with Elijah Weaver scoring seven and Ayden Rose having five.
Kyle Putnum also scored 11 points for Beavercreek, who had nine different players score at least four points.
The final score marked season-highs and lows for both teams in points scored and allowed.
Arlinghaus said with the game so lopside, his team can either talk about it a bunch in the locker room or try to get back at it the next day and see how it wants to respond.
“You have to continue to work in trying to get better and become closer together,” Arlinghaus said. “You would like different results, but at the end of it you need to keep focusing on yourself and wanting to try to get ourselves better night in and night out.”
