The Chillicothe Cavaliers rode a hot shooting first half to a 49-36 win over the Irish freshman at Scioto on Thursday evening.

In the first quarter, the Irish took a 5-3 lead two minutes into the game on a Brandon Brown trey from the left wing. Jason Tiemeier opened the scoring with a lay-in on a nice feed off dribble penetration by Dylan Coscia.

Despite committing only one turnover in the first quarter, the Irish were unable to hit shots consistently on the offensive end. Facing both man and zone defenses, the Cavs used solid ball movement to create open jump shots that they converted. This enabled them to jump out to a 15-8 lead after one quarter.

A Tiemeier put back bucket opened the second quarter scoring to cut the lead to 15-10 with 5:34 to go. However, a 10-3 Cavs run over the next three minutes established a 24-13 lead for the visitors.

Despite a cold shooting night overall, the Irish gave themselves a chance to stay in the game on the strength of two more treys by Brown and by committing only two turnovers in the second quarter. The teams went to the locker rooms at the half with the visitors leading 29-19.

Ryan Adams opened the third quarter with a drive to the basket and pull-up jumper to cut the lead to 29-21. A Tiemeier lay-in and three free throws by Jerod Nawrocki were the other Irish points in the quarter, which ended with the Cavs leading 38-26.

Coscia got the Irish on the board in the fourth quarter with a drive and lay-in. He added two more drives to the bucket and a pair of free throws to score 8 points in the fourth quarter. Tiemeier picked up the other two Irish points on a lay-in after a bounce pass from Nawrocki.

In addition to picking up five steals, Coscia scored a game high 12 points. Brown chipped in 9 – all on treys in the first half. Other Irish in the scoring column were Tiemeier (8), Nawrocki (5) and Adams (2). Also playing for the Irish were Mike Henderson, Nate Innis and Rahim Wasim.