by MENTOR, Ohio–Seven different players scored in double figures for the burning River Buckets on Jan. 8, helping lead to a 153-85 win over the Beaver County Indians. The Buckets buried a season-high 29 3-pointers during the win, eight coming from Justin Fritts and seven coming from KT Taylor.
“It’s awesome and I just get to enjoy it on the sidelines,” head coach Patrick Koenig said about his team knocking down a barrage of outside looks. “All those threes, I bet half of them came off an extra pass and as a coach that makes me happy.”
It was Taylor’s first game back since entering health and safety protocols a couple of weeks ago and he picked up right where he wanted to. Taylor led the way with a team-high 32 points during the win.
“It’s a good feeling, just knowing that everybody can score and move the ball around,” Taylor said about the win. ”I felt like I couldn’t miss, like anything I shot was going in, I had everything clicking for me.”
Burning River was able to capitalize early and often from the Beaver County turnovers. Justin Fritts found a rhythm early on and kickstarted a slew of runs for the Buckets. He had a game-high 14 points after the first quarter, including four 3-pointers to give the Buckets an early 34-21 lead.
From there, Beaver County started to commit even more turnovers. This time, Anthony Coleman and KT Taylor headlined a high-scoring second quarter. The Buckets maintained a 20-point lead for most of the second quarter with Taylor knocking down back-to-back 3-pointers closing out the first half to give the Buckets a commanding 73-43 lead at the break.
It was the first game for the Buckets since their 105-101 loss back on Dec. 18. The key coming into their eighth game was to focus on getting a good start and into a rhythm. The Buckets executed on that.
“I think the focus coming off our two-week break was just to get out to a good start and to get back into the swing of things and to continue to build up our good habits and chemistry,” coach Koenig said after the win. “I thought we did a good job and really didn’t skip a beat. I thought defensively to start we needed to pick up the energy a little bit so I put in five guards to kind of speed up the process but yeah, they did great.”
Justin Fritts ended the game with 31 points following a first-half where he connected on five 3-pointers. Anthony Coleman had 17 points along with 13 from Michael Ryan to help lead the Buckets to a 6-2 start to the season.
Six-foot guard Gabe Kynard made his season debut for the Buckets Saturday night, pouring in 14 points off the bench. It’s an addition that allows Koenig and his team another body off the bench to come in and provide valuable minutes. Not to mention he’s a vocal leader and a true point guard, according to Koenig.
“This is Gabe Kynard’s first game just to try to get more bodies on the team and to get some different looks and he did awesome tonight,” Koenig said. “He’s a true point guard and that’s what we need coming off the bench.”
Next up for the Buckets is a matchup on the road against the Naptown Pros on Jan. 15.
