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Northmont's defense comes up big in win

Defensive effort ends string of 22 straight GWOC Central wins.

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By Greg Billing, Staff Writer Updated 11:51 PM Friday, December 9, 2011

CLAYTON — Late in the fourth quarter and trailing Northmont by a basket, a Wayne assistant coach told the Warriors that defense — not offense — was going to win this game.

He was right.

But it was the Thunderbolts who came up with the needed stops — including two in the final 15 seconds — in a 60-57 victory that snapped the Warriors’ Greater Western Ohio Conference Central Division winning streak at 22.

Holding a precarious 59-57 lead with 15 seconds left, Northmont junior guard Keith Richardson got a hand on a Wayne pass and took it the other way before he was fouled. He made one of two free throws for the 60-57 lead, but even that wasn’t secure until Nothmont senior forward Jamal Trammell cradled a defensive rebound off a Wayne miss under the basket with 0.2 seconds left.

The loss was the Warriors’ first in the Central Division since Centerville beat them 61-58 on Feb. 10, 2009.

“I think teams want to come at us every single year, and obviously this is a team that doesn’t have a lot of experience,” Wayne coach Travis Trice said. “We’re going to get better. ... We took every punch and we stayed right there.”

Wayne — which trailed by as many as 11 points in the first half — tied it early in the third. The Warriors led twice in the second half, the final time at 46-44 with 1:10 left in the third, and never trailed by more than four the rest of the way.

Northmont coach Jim Brown, who credited Wayne with controlling the game’s tempo, was frustrated with his team’s 14 of 29 effort from the free-throw line and its defensive lapses.

But he also knows any win over Wayne (1-2) is a good win.

“We can play so much better than this. That’s what I told the guys,” Brown said. “I’m happy we won the game, but the neat part is we didn’t play well and we won the game. It’s early, and we beat a team that hasn’t lost a league game in two-and-a-half years.”

Devon Carter led Northmont (2-0) with 14 points, Trammell had 13 and Richardson 12.

Keith Clements and Juan Ford paced Wayne with 12 each.

Prior to the game, Northmont’s home opener, a moment of silence was held for assistant coach Jim Ehler, who coached at Northmont for 13 seasons and before that with Brown at Wright State. Ehler died in March.

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