From staff reports

OAK HARBOR — Trailing by 11 points at halftime, Oak Harbor needed a surge to get back into its game with Port Clinton, and got it from the play of Blake Booker. Booker scored 32 points as the Rockets (5-6, 4-1 SBC Bay) rallied and defeated the Redskins, 55-50.

Oak Harbor trailed 37-32 after three quarters and outscored Port Clinton (4-7, 1-4) 23-13 in the fourth.

“There was a lot of emotion in the game. The major story was, this team refused to quit. We didn’t have a really good shooting first quarter, and didn’t play great defense at times in the first half, but we knew we had to keep chipping away,” said Oak Harbor coach Eric Sweet. “This group is resilient. When the shots started falling, we started to get some stops.”

It was another great performance from Booker, the Put-in-Bay native. He made four 3-pointers and was 8-of-11 from the free-throw line.

“People know he’s a shooter and a scorer. He’s much, much quicker with the ball in his hands with his footwork,” said Sweet. “He’s got some deep range. On Saturday, he hit some that were pretty far back. He has a quick release, he got hot, and it really helped with that game Saturday night.”

Booker didn’t really get going until the second half, but when he did, he took the game over.

“I thought we did a great job on Booker for the first half. We had a specific game plan that we followed much better in the first half than we did in the second half,” said Port Clinton coach Ryan Hicks. “We had a couple of breakdowns that got him wide open shots or sent him to the free-throw line. All the credit to him for making those shots. They had a good game plan, they’re very well-coached. We didn’t play well enough in the second half. We just didn’t play well enough overall.”

Brenan Ish had eight points to help pace the Rockets. T.J. Hallett chipped in with five.

“Brenan Ish got a huge steal off of Adam Thorbahn, hit a big 3, Ryan Ridener made an amazing pass to Blake Booker for an and-one, Max kept grinding and rebounding. It isn’t just one guy, the rest of these kids just do the small things that, as a head coach, I love,” said Sweet. “We love this kids for it, they’re willing to do some of those small things. Those guys are willing to screen and get their teammates open. I’m proud of this group of kids, they’re fun to coach.

Port Clinton led 10-7 after the first quarter and 28-17 at halftime before Oak Harbor outscored the ‘Skins, 38-22, in the second half. Tommy Owens led Port Clinton with 13 points and Adam Thorbahn and Tyler Webb scored 11 points apiece.

The Rockets are tied with Willard atop the Sandusky Bay Conference Bay Division standings at 4-1.

“I feel great about where the team is. We went to Willard and won a big one, we got Edison at home,” said Sweet. “Huron is game we’ve talked about and tried to learn from the most. We get one from Margaretta at their place and Port Clinton at home — we beat Margaretta by one and had a huge comeback win vs. Port Clinton. This next round (of league games) is not going to be easy. We have to play everyone again.”

Danbury falls in OT to St. Mary CC

Danbury played one of its best games of the season against St. Mary Central Catholic, but fell short, 69-58, in overtime to the Panthers.

The Lakers (1-9, 1-7 SBC River) led 22-14 after the first quarter and 30-23 at halftime before SMCC (7-3, 5-1) outscored them 15-8 in the third quarter to tie the score at 38. The teams battled to a 54-54 tie after three quarters.

Danbury had four players finish in double figures — Bradley Murray (16), Kaden Conrad (15), Beau Buchanan (13) and Blake Barker (10).

Gus Roth led all scorers with 19 points, Cole Kromer finished with 15, DeAron Newell, who helped key the third-quarter surge, scored 14 points and Ashton Groff had 11.

Groff scored eight points in overtime to help put the game away.