ARCANUM – The Arcanum Trojans opened WOAC boys basketball play with a dominant 62–20 victory over the visiting Ansonia Tigers, using a 38-point second half to pull away after a slower-paced first half.
“I trust all those guys on our team with everything, and that’s why we go nine deep,” Arcanum coach Kevin Brackman said. “Game situation, time of game, I trust them all, and I think they understand that.”
Ansonia entered the night with a youthful lineup—four sophomores and a junior—and quickly fell behind 9-0 before getting on the board at the 2:25 mark. Arcanum extended its lead to 14-2 and closed the opening quarter ahead 16-6.
“Being young, we have to take care of the basketball,” first-year Ansonia coach Josh Moore said. “We didn’t handle pressure well all night. We can’t play at their pace and tempo—we have to set our direction, slow it down, take care of it, and protect the basketball.”
The second quarter was the Tigers’ best of the night. While both teams struggled to find their shooting touch, Arcanum managed just eight points while Ansonia scored seven, sending the game to halftime with the Trojans leading 24-13.
“I’m proud of the first half of basketball that we played,” Moore added. “That is part of growing, that’s part of being young—can you put two halves together, a complete game? I felt like we did that last week, and we have to do it week in and week out. We have to be confident enough to make the right decisions to keep us in a place to where we’re going to be OK.”
Arcanum answered with a statement in the third quarter, erupting for 22 points with seven players contributing while holding the Tigers to just three. The Trojans took a 46-16 lead into the final period.
“We had a nice long talk at halftime,” Brackman said. “Let’s leave it at that.”
With the outcome well in hand, Brackman emptied his bench midway through the fourth quarter as Arcanum closed the game with a 16-4 running-clock finish to secure the 42-point win.
“Our guard play—we’re leaning on that a lot in situations for our team to be successful,” Brackman noted. “I am constantly challenging our guards to take control. Good teams are only as good as their guards. The more we can put on their shoulders, the better our team is going to be, the farther our team is going to go.”
Arcanum sophomore forward Ben Hamilton delivered a breakout performance, scoring in all four quarters and going 3-for-3 at the line for a game-high 22 points.
“We challenged him before the game,” Brackman said of his 6’7” sophomore. “Last weekend he kind of dipped his toes in the water, but tonight we wanted him to come out and make a statement in the first conference game of the season, and I think he rose to that challenge.
“We’re still working through a lot, taking it day by day trying to get him acclimated to everyone else on our roster and the way we can put him in positions to score—and Cameron Ball is there too. Just getting those guys to play together and seeing what we can get out of them when they’re on the floor at the same time.”
With the victory, Arcanum improves to 3-0 with wins over Bethel, Greenville, and Ansonia. The Tigers fall to 1-1 after their season-opening win over Covington.
BOX SCORE:
ARCANUM 62, ANSONIA 20
ARCANUM – B. Hamilton 22, J. Mote 10, M. McCans 8, C. Ball 8, B. Cartwright 5, C. Weiss 5, G. Garno 2, C. Hamilton 2 – TOTALS 24 5-5 3 62
ANSONIA – K. Weiss 7, Jacob MacNutt 5, G. Coppess 4, J. Schmidtmeyer 4 – TOTALS 4 3-11 3 20
THREE POINTERS
Arcanum 3 (B. Cartwright 1, C. Weiss 1, B. Hamilton 1)
Ansonia 3 (K. Weiss 2, J. MacNutt 1)
SCORE by QUARTERS
16-08-22-16 62 Arcanum
06-07-03-04 20 Ansonia
