LEBANON — North Montgomery boys basketball’s struggles on the offensive end continued Friday as the Chargers traveled to Lebanon. North could only muster 29 points which was a season-low for the Chargers in what ended up a 50-29 Lebanon win. Mid-way through the third quarter, the Chargers trailed by just four points a 25-21 but five straight by the Tigers swelled the lead back to nine and then Kaden Lark made back-to-back threes to open the fourth and just like that North trailed 41-23.
North Montgomery (5-9, 0-4 SAC) had no answer for Tiger junior Kaden Lark who scored 22 points to lead all scorers.
“Lark’s a great player and he’s real quick and can also just raise up and shoot over you which is impressive since he’s not overly tall,” Charger coach Chad Arnold said. “I thought Kelby did a good job on him and Ross Dyson did a fantastic job guarding (Jack) Ferrell. We cut it to that four point deficit and just couldn’t score after that. We turned it over too much in the third quarter and those led to some break aways for them too.”
As Arnold noted all 5’9 of Dyson held his ground against the 6’4, 235 pound Ferrell and held him to just three points. No one else on the Tigers scored more than eight as Wesley Byrd drained a pair of threes.
Kelby Harwood was aggressive attacking the basket early and kept the Chargers in the game as the junior finished with 12 points to lead the Chargers. Noah Hopkins had six, Dyson four, Jarrod Kirsch three, and Cam Enlow and Colten Arnold both had two.
For the game the Chargers shot 11-32 (34%) from the field and just 1-10 (10%) from deep while only shooting four shots from the foul line and making two. They grabbed 24 rebounds and turned the ball over 15 times.
Lebanon (7-7, 3-3 SAC) shot 19-48 (39.5%) from the field in the win with an overwhelming majority of their shots coming from three. The Tigers shot 9-29 (31%) from behind the arc while going 4-6 from the foul line. They grabbed 30 rebounds and turned the ball over just six times.
This already marks the seventh time this season the Chargers have been held under 40 points as they’re also in search of snapping what is now a 24-game Sagamore conference losing streak dating back to Mar. 6 of 2020 when they defeated Frankfort 49-46.
North will be back in action on Tuesday against an always-tough West Lafayette (9-5) team before hosting the Western Boone Stars on Friday.
