Redmen roll by Lake, Loomis notches 100th career win

FOSTORIA – Fostoria High School's basketball team is in the midst of a noteworthy season: earlier this year Machi Johnson scored his 1,000th career point and on Friday head coach Thom Loomis got his 100th career win.Jordan Ferguson scored 28 points – including 20 in the second half – to lead FHS past visiting Lake 87-74 in Northern Buckeye Conference action."It's one of those things that in a long career you never know if it's going to happen," Loomis said of his 100th victory. "When you start your varsity career at Bettsville … I didn't think that was going to happen."Bettsville's basketball program was the smallest in the state until the school was absorbed into Old Fort in 2014. Loomis said he enjoyed his time there and wouldn't trade it for the world.Sixty four of Loomis' wins have come at Fostoria, where he is in his seventh year as the head coach."It's been a wonderful ride. We've had nice success over the last five years. We've worked real hard to change the culture of the program here," Loomis said. Fostoria trailed Lake early after the Flyers scored the first points of the game on a pair of free throws by Dylan Wiley at 7:26, then again when Travis Merrill's 3-pointer put Lake ahead 8-6 at 4:59. After the teams traded baskets the Redmen went on a 10-4 run to pull ahead 18-14. In the second quarter Carter Behlmer knocked down a trey and Wiley scored at 6:42 to tie the score 24-24, but a 9-0 run by the Redmen put FHS in the lead for good. Jayceon Tucker scored a pair of field goals, Johnson canned a 3-pointer and Ferguson scored on a putback at 4:55 for a 33-24 Redmen advantage.The Flyers pulled within 36-33 with Behlmer's only basket from inside the arc at 2:12, but Ryan O'Neal scored his second trey of the period at 1:50 to extend FHS's lead to 39-33. Kristian Carter-Stokes scored twice in the final minute of the first half and the Redmen carried a 45-36 lead into halftime.Second half highlights included an alley-oop dunk by Ferguson on a feed from Carter-Stokes at 1:43 of the fourth, raising the score to 83-64.Carter-Stokes finished the game with a career-high 24 points and passed for 11 assists for a double-double. Loomis said Carter-Stokes has had to sacrifice some offensive opportunities throughout his career at FHS because he's the one athlete that can play all five positions and has been used to adapt to situations that can arise during games, such as a player getting into foul trouble.Johnson registered 13 points while Tucker scored 12 points.Behlmer paced the Flyers with 17 points while Preston Snyder had 13, Caleb Tobias contributed 12 points, and Wylie and Merrill each scored 11 points. Fostoria 87, Lake 74LAKE (9-5, 4-4)Snyder 3-7—13, Wiley 4-3—11, Tobias 5-2—12, Behlmer 6-0—17, Merrill 4-0—11, Scott 0-0—0, Blazevich 1-1—4, Tajblik 1-0—2, Sobczak 1-2—4. TOTALS: 25 15-21 – 74.FOSTORIA (11-3, 6-2)Johnson 5-2—13, Kleinmark 0-0—0, Smith 1-0—2, O'Neal 2-0—6, Holmes 0-0—0, Cousin 0-0—0, Carter-Stokes 11-2—24, Tucker 5-2—12, Ferguson 13-2—28, Harrison 0-0—0, Miller 1-0—2. TOTALS: 38 8-15 – 87.Lake&emsp;&emsp;19&emsp;&emsp;17&emsp;&emsp;19&emsp;&emsp;19&emsp;&emsp;-&emsp;&emsp;74Fostoria&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;20&emsp;&emsp;25&emsp;&emsp;20&emsp;&emsp;22&emsp;&emsp;-&emsp;&emsp;873-POINT GOALS: Lake 8 (Behlmer 5, Merrill 3); Fostoria 3 (O'Neal 2, Johnson).