PROCTORVILLE - The fact the Ironton Fighting Tigers play good defense is not any news to opponents. But adding a high-powered offense is news.

Bad news.

Ironton placed five players in double figures and 12 of 15 in the scoring column as they rolled past the Fairland Dragons 98-25 Friday in the season opening game for both teams.

"We're a powerful bunch. We've got a lot of kids who can score," Ironton coach Roger Zornes said. "We've got a good inside game and our inside game opens up our outside game. We've got some young kids who are coming on for us and we're a very, very deep team. We played 12 people the first half."

Brigham Waginger led Ironton with 19 points, six assists and six steals. Dennis Gagai had 14 points, six rebounds and three steals.

Cliff Howard got 14 points and six rebounds in his first game at Ironton, Marcus Williams came off the bench to score 14 points and pull down six rebounds, and Joe Zornes got 12 points and a game-high seven rebounds.

While the offense was good, the defense was even better.

Ironton forced the Dragons into 37 turnovers and limited them to just 9 of 43 shooting from the field for 20.9 percent.

"We wanted to take our defense to another level. Our defense caused a lot of problems the first half. The second half we worked on our halfcourt defense and played pretty well," coach Zornes said.

Fairland was led by Daniel Spears with 6 points and Todd Maynard had 5 points and three rebounds.

"Forget the score. Coach (Chad) Belville is doing a good job and he'll get them turned around," coach Zornes said.

Ironton went on a 10-0 run to start the game and led 18-3 on a foul shot by Brandon Walker with 21 seconds left in the first quarter. Fairland's Matt Burd followed up a missed shot at the buzzer and it was 18-5.

Howard got 4 points, Joe Zornes nailed a 3-pointer, Waginger had a steal and layup, Howard scored inside and Zornes made two free throws as Ironton scored 15 unanswered points to start the second quarter and the lead was 33-5. Michael Spence hit a 12-footer at the 4:14 mark to snap the Fairland scoring drought.

A layup by Greg Linn pushed the lead to 41-9

and Ironton went on an 8-0 run at the end of the half to put the Fighting Tigers up 48-12 at the break.

The Fighting Tigers outscored Fairland 17-0 to begin the second half to lead 65-12 and coach Zornes began emptying his bench.

On Tuesday, Ironton travels to Wheelersburg while Fairland visits Green.

Ironton18302525-98

Fairland5785-25

IRONTON (1-0):

Dennis Gagai 6-12 (1-3) 1-1 14, Brigham Waginger 8-15 (1-3) 2-2 19, Joe Zornes 4-9 (1-1) 3-4 12, Cliff Howard 6-9 (0-0) 2-5 14, Brent McBride 0-0 (0-0) 0-0 0, Marcus Williams 5-7 (0-0) 4-4 14, Brian Wirzfeld 1-4 (0-0) 0-0 2, Greg Linn 4-6 (0-0) 0-0 8, Brandon Walker 1-2 (0-1) 1-2 3, Chad Miller 2-6 (0-1) 0-1 4, Patrick Kouns 0-1 (0-0) 1-2 1, Shawon Miller 2-4 (1-1) 0-0 5, Michael Phillips 0-0 (0-0) 0-0 0, T.J. Keith 1-1 (0-0) 0-0 2. Totals: 40-77

(4-10)

14-21

98. Fouls: 10. Fouled out: None. Rebounds: 24-23=47 (Zornes 7, Gagai 6, Howard 6, Williams 6). Team/deadball rebounds: 3. Assists: 14 (Waginger 6). Steals: 19 (Waginger 6, Gagai 3). Turnovers: 15.

FAIRLAND (0-1):

Kyle Wise 0-4 (0-1) 0-0 0, Travis Cardwell 0-8 (0-3) 2-2 2, Todd Maynard 2-9 (1-4) 0-0 5, Daniel Spears 3-7 (0-3) 0-0 6, Matt Burd 1-1 (0-0) 0-0 2, Josh Johnson 0-1 (0-0) 0-0 0, Zach Pemberton 0-1 (0-1) 1-2 1, Rich Staggs 0-2 (0-1) 2-4 2, Josh Moore 1-2 (0-0) 0-0 2, Michael Spence 2-6 (0-1) 0-0 4, Ethan Black 0-2 (0-2) 1-2 1, Nick Zundel 0-1 (0-1) 0-0 0, J.B. Smith 0-0 (0-0) 0-0 0, Michael Higgins 0-0 (0-0) 0-0 0. Totals: 9-43

(1-15)

6-10

25. Fouls: 17, Fouled out: Burd (5:39 3rd). Rebounds: 9-7=16 (Maynard 3). Team/deadball rebounds: 7. Assists: 1 (Staggs). Steals: 8 (Maynard 3). Turnovers: 37.