Tusing's 28 points leads Warriors over SE

ATTICA — Mohawk's Hunter Gottfried left early with an ankle injury. Brock Brause was hindered with foul trouble. So, down two starters for most of the game at Seneca East Friday night, Mohawk junior guard Austin Tusing stepped up and delivered a 64-50 win to the Warriors. Tusing, who dropped in 20 points in the opening half, finished with a game-high 28 points and was unstoppable getting into the paint. He also drained three 3-pointers. "We played Arcadia last Saturday and I really got on him at halftime. I told him that he's the guy other guys will look to if he's playing hard at all times, communicating with them and he came out and since then he's played six of the best quarters I've seen him play," Warriors coach Paul Dunn said. "So I'm really proud of him taking that step and taking the leadership on the team and because of that we'll be better for it. "He literally put us on his back. We've had players in the past do that, but for Austin to do that, it shows he's embracing the role that the team needs him to be." The first quarter was pretty even as Mohawk led 14-9 after a Tusing layup with two minutes left in the period, but Seneca East's Andy Bauman drilled consecutive treys to give the Tigers a 16-14 lead. Mohawk (5-5, 3-3 N10) gained some separation at the half with a 33-26 advantage, but the real scoring gap happened at the beginning of the second half. Mohawk started with a 16-2 run to lead the Tigers 48-28 before they knew what hit them. "We talk about the first three minutes of each half being big and we played into their hands," SE coach Chris Long said. "We made some careless turnovers and in my opinion settled for some jumpshots rather than trying to attack the paint and attack the basket to put pressure on them. There's a difference between settling and taking good 3s. "Last week after the first quarter with Upper (Sandusky) we didn't settle as much, but I thought tonight, if we got an open look we were going to shoot the 3 rather attack and put pressure on their defense. Credit to them because that's what their gameplan is. We talked about it, but we played right into their hands." Brause had six quick points in the run and Tyler Hayman completed a three-point play. The Warriors caused turnover after turnover within the run with their fullcourt pressure. "We had Gottfried go down about four minutes into the game and we were in scramble mode because we picked a terrible night to get cute with our JV quarters too, so we had to figure some things out," Dunn said. "Guys stepped in and did their jobs. We were in crisis mode there, but Tusing, the guy with the most experience out there, carried us there and settled everyone else down. "We had to do a lot of scrambling tonight, but I thought that 16-2 run kind of showed our determination there." After three quarters, the Tigers (2-6, 2-4) trailed 52-35, but did battle back within 59-47 late in the fourth quarter. They just couldn't slow down Mohawk enough to make things interesting late. "It just has to start on the defensive end. We aren't going to outscore anybody unless we have an exceptional hot-shooting night, but outside of that … you have get it done on defensive end at the high school level," Long said. "You can't give guys two, three chances to score the ball or not be in help-side position giving guys layups. You have to sit down and you have to defend as a unit. Whatever five guys are out there have to defend as a unit." Bauman led the Tigers with 18 points, while Andrew Kalb added 14. Backing Tusing for the Warriors was Brause with 13 points. "I'm excited. We now are one game into the 2020 part of the season and we're 5-5," Dunn said. "We've come a long way from where we started and I'm really hoping that we continue to progress. I think we have the leadership to be a pretty good team. We just have to start stringing wins together. I thought our guys came out with a little more fire tonight and we were able to hold on there at the end."