STEUBENVILLE — Down a couple of starters, Steubenville got off to a bit of a sloppy start Friday night.

Hosting a youthful East Liverpool team on senior night in the Crimson Center, Steubenville took a little bit to adjust to a different line up and a 1-3-1 defensive look from the Potters and turned the ball over way more early on than veteran coach Mike Haney would have liked.

Once they settled in, though, the shots started falling — and in a hurry. Big Red rattled off a 26-3 run to take control and never looked back on the way to rolling to a 73-39 victory.

“It was a little sloppy,” Haney said. “I thought our defense was really good and got some turnovers and we hit some shots the other way and got us going. We had too many turnovers but we’ll fix that.

“I wasn’t sure what (the number) was but I knew it was a good run. We started running our offense. They were in that 1-3-1 and we were turning the ball over and taking quick shots, once we started working it and getting better shots they started falling things went our way from there.”

Big Red, which earlier this week locked up the top seed in next week’s OVAC Class 5A tournament, leads the Division III East District RPI standings and is ranked No. 6 in the state in Division III by MaxPreps, improved to 16-1 with the win.

Despite missing two regular starters — senior Tre Wiggins due to an illness and sophomore Landon Bowers with an injury — Steubenville still finished with four players in double digits and shot 62 percent from the floor, making 12 3-pointers and shooting 40 percent from beyond the arc.

Junior standout Santino Haney, the OVAC’s leading scorer, netted a game-high 22 points to go with six rebounds. Senior Jermaine Moore followed close behind with 21 points and four boards, knocking down a game-high five 3s. Senior Cole Bowers hit three triples and finished with 11 points and junior Braidyn Edwards came off the bench to net 12 points and a team-leading eight rebounds.

“It was great to see guys step up with Tre’von and Landon out,” coach Haney said. “The guys that came in did a really good job and gave us a lot of minutes, that’s a big thing because this time of year you never know when you’re going to need that (depth) if guys have injuries, get in foul trouble, it’s good to know those guys are ready to step up.”

Wiggins, who was on hand despite being unable to play, was recognized prior to the game along with Cole Bowers, Moore and Che’Mier Adams.

“We always want to want to win on senior night, it’s one of those nights those guys will always remember,” coach Haney said.

Steubenville led 25-5 after the opening quarter despite the sloppy start as the Potters were unable to take advantage of the early turnovers, struggling to turn them into points. East Liverpool (8-11) shot 42 percent overall and 27 percent from beyond the arc. They were just 2 of 8 in the opening quarter.

“It’s kind of been the story of our last two games, we create turnovers and can’t take advantage of them,” East Liverpool head coach Kade Reynolds said. “We start two freshmen and had no returning lettermen coming into the year. We had the two best teams on our schedule the last two games with Canfield and Big Red and turned both of them over early in the game, we just couldn’t capitalize. It’s good for our young guys to see that type of basketball and that type of speed. That’s only going to make us better going forward.”

Big Red continued its run into the second quarter and led 47-15 at halftime. After Big Red got the margin above 35 to enact the running clock in the second half, the Potters did make a couple of pushes to stop the clock a couple of times, but things had long since been decided.

East Liverpool was led by 11 points and seven rebounds from Tyler Kirby.

Big Red finished with a 28-19 advantage off the glass.

UP NEXT

East Liverpool: Travels to Weir High on Tuesday in OVAC consolation pool action.

Big Red: Hosts No. 4 seed John Marshall in the OVAC Class 5A tournament semifinals on Tuesday night.

EL: 5-10-12-12–39

ST: 25-22-14-12–73

EAST LIVERPOOL (8-11): Jayce Douglas 2 2-3 6; Dre Brown 0 1-2 1; Tyler Kirby 5 1-3 11; Javan Dawson 2 0-0 5; Dre’Keim Abercrombie 0 0-0 0; Meshach Harris 3 0-0 7; Ben Myers 0 0-0 0; Donavin Austin 0 0-0 0; Elliott Fitch 3 0-0 6; Thoren Long 1 0-0 3. TEAM TOTALS: 16, 4-8: 39.

STEUBENVILLE (16-1): Haney 10 0-4 22; Moore 7 4-4 21; Bowers 4 0-0 11; Adams 1 0-0 2; Rea 1 1-2 3; Edwards 4 2-2 12; Burkhart 0 0-0 0; Kokiko 0 0-0 0; Nocera 1 0-0 2. TOTALS: 28, 7-12: 73.

Three-point goals: East Liverpool 3 (Dawson, Long, Harris); Big Red 12 (Moore 5, Bowers 3, Haney 2, Edwards 2). REBOUNDS: East Liverpool 19 (Kirby 7); Big Red 28 (Edwards 8).