By Nicholas Huenefeld

Special to the Sentinel-Tribune

PEMBERVILLE — The Eastwood boys basketball team stifled Oak Harbor on Friday with a dominating second half to produce a 61-37 win on its home court.

With the win, the Eagles (8-7 overall) are now tied with Genoa for second place in the Northern Buckeye Conference at 7-3, one game behind Fostoria (13-3, 8-2).

“This was huge for us,” said Eastwood coach Jason Faykosh. “We’ve talked all year about how close the league is. There’s not going to be a dominant winner who goes undefeated in our league.

“We knew we dropped a couple tough ones the last couple games, but our effort was still there in both of them. This was a big one.”

Down 27-25 at the break, Eastwood outscored Oak Harbor 36-10 in the second half, shooting 14-of-26 as a team and making half of their eight shots from long distance over the final 16 minutes.

Conversely, they held the Rockets to a 3-for-28 performance from the field during that span, including an 0-for-13 start in the fourth quarter.

“We wanted to come out strong (in the second half),” Eastwood’s Dayquan Oliver said. “We couldn’t keep digging ourselves a hole. We just had to go strong every fast break. Fast breaks were really what made us go.”

Oliver (19) and Andre Lewis (15) combined for 34 points, including 21 in the second half. They had 16 of Eastwood’s 19 points in the critical third quarter, helping to propel their team to 44-34 advantage through 24 minutes.

“(Oliver and Lewis) just played at a really high level,” Faykosh said. “They were able to drive, get into the paint. Last couple games, we haven’t been able to get a lot of stuff around the rim. Tonight, they were getting into the paint, finishing everything around the rim. They both played a really complete game.”

Early on, it appeared Oak Harbor would cruise to a win as they jumped out to a 14-4 lead on 6-of-7 shooting and led 18-13 through one despite a bucket from Andrew Badenhop at the buzzer.

The Rockets then led 23-15 through the first four possessions of the second quarter, but Oliver drained a three-pointer before a big momentum-building five-point play from Drew Kachmarik. Oliver followed with another basket to complete a 10-0 run, although Oak Harbor responded on the next possession and took a two-point lead into the break.

“That was huge,” Faykosh said of the five-point play from Kachmarik. “That was a big run for us. He’s been a consistent shooter for us all year, and that definitely got us going. We kind of fed off that and shots continued to fall.”

After starting the game 10-for-13 from the field as a team, including a 2-for-2 start to the second quarter, Oak Harbor was held to a 4-for-34 finish the rest of the way. Conversely, Eastwood shot 22-of-41 after starting 1-for-6.

So, what changed?

“Everything,” Faykosh said. “We defended at a very high level. We knew coming into the game that they had a couple really good players, (Ethan) Stokes being one of the better players in the league. We wanted to make everything that he got tough. He ended up with eight, and I think all eight were contested jumpers.

“We did a phenomenal job on him. We challenged our guys. The first time we played them, we left some guys on the perimeter, and they were able to knock down some threes and got hot from the outside.

“This time, we challenged our guys to close out on the perimeter and run them off the line a little bit more. We did that. We didn’t give them many outside shots.”

Eastwood outscored Oak Harbor 16-7 in second chance points on 11 offensive rebounds — four from Lewis — and had just six turnovers, including zero in the fourth.

“Our guards absolutely work their butts off,” Faykosh said. “They compete. They battle for rebounds. Lewis is our leading rebounder, and he’s a 5-10 guard. We have some athletic guards that just compete their butts off. It’s good to see us dominate on the boards like that.”