The sucessful beginning to the 2022-23 seaon for Fountain Central boys basketball continued on Saturday as the Mustangs hosted Western Boone. The Stars who came in huungry for a win were never able to contain the high powered FC offense as the Mustangs up 13-9 in the final couple of minutes in the opening quarter, went on a 11-0 run and held the Stars scoreless until mid-way through the second period. WeBo played their best stratch in the opening minutes of the third going on a 10-2 run, but Foutnain Central controlled the rest of the second half and cruised to a 72-34 win.
6’10 big man Mason Larkin has a coming out party of sorts as he had eight first quarter points including two threes as he ended the game scoirng 17 points. Will Harmon did his typical scoring for the Mustangs as well as he led all scorers with 20 points in the blowout win.
“We did a very good job from the get go of coming out with energy and intensity especially defensively,” Mustang coach Greg Dean said. “That start of the third they came out in a box and on Will and had to make some adjustments. After that we made some very good decisions on offense to get great shots with kids flashing to the right areas. Overall we has a ton of guys contribute tonight and do a lot of good things.”
Dean was spot on with that last comment as FC had 10 guys score on the night as most of the junior vasrsity players saw playing time in the fourth quarter. Along with Harmon’s 20 and Larkin’s 17, Owen Acton scored seven, Brayden Prickett and Koby Wolf both notched six, Isaac Gayler and Isaac Hehmann four, Aiden Owen and Gabe McCollum three, and Luke Foxworthy two.
“If you’re getting your JV guys in the game, you’re doing a lot of things right in a game,” Dean said. “We want to get as many of those guys chances to play as we can. Tonight was the first time we’ve played on a Saturday after having a Friday night game. We had a small walk through this morning and still for it being early in the year I thought we executed our scouting report about as well as we could have.”
The Mustangs shot the ball well from the field going 27-53 (51%) for the gmae and drilled 11 threes in the win. Through their first five games the Mustangs have scored 64.4 points per game and are holding their opponents to a staggering 29 a game which ranks first in the entire state in fewest points per game.
Western Boone was led in scoring by Levi Lagrange who scored 16 points as FC’s defense held WeBo to just 12-38 (32%) from the field. What led to a big descrepency in the scoring was that the Stars shot just three threes the entire game and made just one compared to FC’s 11.
Dean saw this game as a coming out party for his 6’10 senior as the first couple of games he believed Larkin hadn’t quite played how he know he can.
“For our area and the teams that we play he’s a tough matchup for anyone,” Dean said. “Tonight was his breakout game because he knew that he hasn’t played that well up until tonight and was disappointed with that. We challenged him and he handled every bit of coaching that we threw his way these last couple of weeks. I was very happy and proud of him that he stepped up and had a big game for us.”
Fountain Central stays undefeated at 5-0 and they now prepare for what will be a very busy next two weeks. Wednesday FC will host Seeger (6-1) in the Bi-County tournament. Next week they’ll travel to to Clinton Central for a tournament where they’ll play three games in two days.
