Lisbon’s AJ Ramgeet scored a game-high 30 points against United in leading the Blue Devils to victory Tuesday. (Morning Journal/Ron Firth)

LISBON — Lisbon’s boys basketball team successfully checked off the revenge box in impressive fashion Friday night.

A 56-49 loss to United back on December 16 didn’t sit well with the co-league leading Blue Devils, who circled Friday’s rematch with the Golden Eagles on their Eastern Ohio Athletic Conference calendar.

In Round II Friday, the Blue Devils successfully avenged their only league blemish, dominating the rival Golden Eagles 18-1 in the fourth quarter to turn a tight game into a 58-47 win at George M. Nace Jr. Gymnasium.

With the win, Lisbon improved to 11-3 overall and remains tied for first place with Columbiana for the EOAC lead with a 9-1 league ledger.

With the setback, United is now 7-7 and 5-4 in the EOAC.

Lisbon senior standout AJ Ramgeet took over in the fourth quarter, scoring 10 of his game-high 30 points in the final frame, while also grabbing numerous rebounds to go along with a blocked shot.

“It was a great fourth quarter,” said Ramgeet. “We came out and everyone knew in the fourth quarter we had to play defense first, and we got the stops, and then we came with the offense.”

“I can’t speak enough for my nephew, AJ, he went off,” said Lisbon head coach Chris Huckshold. “He carried us tonight, and even with that, he’s a most unselfish kid and the guys were hitting the boards and getting rebounds and stuff. Everybody stepped up. Tonight was a great atmosphere with a lot of people and these are the types of games that spur you down the road when you win some big ones.”

“I thought in that (fourth-quarter) stretch we didn’t rebound in that minute-and-a-half stretch and they got numerous offensive rebounds and AJ took the game over,” said United head coach Jason Thompson. “So, kudos to him.”

Complementing AJ Ramgeet in the scoring column for the Blue Devils were brother Aidan Ramgeet with 11 points, Blaine Barnes with nine and Logan Sturgeon with eight.

“We were looking forward to this, ever since that night (an earlier loss to United) and we decided to put the hard work in, ” said AJ Ramgeet.

“I think the boys got a little more focused on defense (in the fourth quarter) and shots started falling and confidence starts to snowball,” said Huckshold. “Once we got a little momentum we started to control tempo and got them spread out a little bit.”

United, which led by as many as 10 points (34-24) in the third quarter before being outscored 24-13 the remainder of the game, was paced by Jason Pratt with 13 points. Matthew Hoopes finished with 12 points, Abram Ceresna eight, M’Kyan Haynes seven and Kota Shasteen five.

“I thought our kids played really hard and I’m proud of our kids,” said Thompson.

Huckshold said Lisbon’s last-second comeback win over Wellsville last week helped his team stay focused in the fourth quarter against United.

“In pressure situations there’s no doubt the game against Wellsville (won by the Blue Devils in the final seconds, 63-62) helped us in the fourth quarter today,” said Huckshold. “That carried over, the kids were in that boat (before) and in a couple of the timeouts that happened they were focused and said, hey, we’ve been here before, let’s go finish this.”

In a physical game in which a total of 40 fouls were called, Lisbon forged a one-point (8-7) lead after one quarter.

“It was very physical, I thought the refs let a lot go,” said Thompson. “But it is what it is, and you have to adapt to play what they’re calling.”

The Blue Devils took as much as a five-point first-half lead (12–7) at the 7:20 mark of the second quarter on a layup by Aidan Ramgeet, but United caught the Blue Devils at 12-12 and went on to outscore Lisbon 15-10 the remainder of the quarter to take five-point advantage (27-22) at halftime following a buzzer-beating trey by Pratt.

United controlled the tempo in the third quarter and took as much as a 10-point (34-24) advantage with 5:28 showing in the clock, but Lisbon answered with a 16-12 run to pull within four six points (46-40) going into the fourth quarter.

But Lisbon, which outscored the Golden Eagles 18-1 in the final quarter, dominated the game and took the lead for good at 48-47 following a free throw by Aidan Ramgeet with 3:04 remaining. The Blue Devils, who got in the bonus with 3:03 left in the contest, then outscored United 10-0 in the remaining time, with six of those 10 points coming via the free-throw line to ice the win.

“That was good,” said Huckshold of being in the bonus at crunch time. “They (the Golden Eagles) were in the bonus most of the third quarter, so they got a lot of free throws in the third quarter and were more aggressive, and in the fourth quarter we were more aggressive and we got downhill. We got some fouls and we stepped up and made some free throws.”

Game notes

• Senior Madelyn Marshalek was crowned the Lisbon winter homecoming queen between games Friday.

• United won the junior varsity game, 43-29, as Jordan Kidder and Ryan Miller each scored 11 points. Jett Vrable had 13 points for the Blue Devils.

• Lisbon returns to the hardwood Tuesday night in an Eastern Ohio Athletic Conference contest at East Palestine.

“We’re going to regroup, I’m sure we’ll have some soreness over the weekend and everybody will hunker down for the storm of the century and we’ll see what comes of it,” said Huckshold. “Hopefully we can get in the gym and get some shots up.”

• United will host Valley Christian in an EOAC game Tuesday.

“My kids didn’t have any quit in them tonight, so if we have that moving forward I’m excited for it,” said Thompson.

U: 7-20-19- 1–47

L: 8-14-18-18–58

UNITED SCORING: M’Kyan Haynes 2-3-7, Abram Ceresna 2-2-8, Jason Pratt 3-5-13, Kota Shasteen 2-1-5, Kadin Schonauer 0-0-0, Matthew Hoopes 5-1-12, Gavin Coffee 1-0-2. TEAM TOTALS: 15, 12-20: 47.

LISBON SCORING: Aidan Ramgeet 3-3-11, Blaine Barnes 3-0-9, Aiden Myers 0-0-0, Ashton Hinchliffe 0-0-0, AJ Ramgeet 10-8-30, Logan Sturgeon 2-3-8, Mason Jones 0-0-0. TEAM TOTALS: 18, 14-25: 58.

Three-point goals: United 5 (Abram Ceresna 2, Jason Pratt 2, Matt Hoopes 1), Lisbon 6 (AJ Ramgeet 2, Blaines Barnes 1, Aidan Ramgeet 2, Logan Sturgeon 1).

Total fouls: United 19, Lisbon 21. Fouled out: Blaine Barnes (L).