This one was so ugly it made Marty Feldman look good.

Saturday, February 03, 2001

This one was so ugly it made Marty Feldman look good.

Whether it was shooting or rebounding, it looked ugly as the Ironton Fighting Tigers fell to the Portsmouth Trojans 65-28 Friday night.

Ironton (8-8) managed a meager eight field goals in shooting 21.1 percent from the floor. The Fighting Tigers were dominated on the boards as Portsmouth held a 41-19 advantage.

"We played hard and we battled, but we just couldn’t put the ball in the basket. It doesn’t matter how good you play defense if you can’t score," Ironton coach Chris Barnes said.

"We held them to 27 points the first half and really we didn’t do a bad job the whole game. It just came down to our offense. We had the shots, but we either missed them or let their size intimidate us and change our shots. We just have to do a better job of putting the ball in the basket."

Portsmouth (11-3) was led by Larry Berry with 13 points, five rebounds, four assists, and seven steals.

Greg McKinley had 11 points and 10 rebounds, D. J. Carter got 10 points, and R. K. Thurman grabbed seven rebounds.

Ironton had four players with five points each.

The game was close the first quarter. A layup by Tommy Lutz had Ironton within 12-9 with 43 seconds left, but McKinley and Jeremy Hamrick scored and it was 15-9.

Josh Sands hit a 3-pointer and sank two foul shots to cut Portsmouth’s lead to 17-14 at the 5:26 mark of the second quarter, but Ironton would not score the rest of the half as the Trojans went on a 10-0 run to lead 27-14 at the break.

A 3-pointer by Josh Harmon had Ironton down 31-20 with 6:26 to go in the third quarter. The offense stalled again as Portsmouth ran off 12 unanswered points to lead 43-20. Sands hit another 3-pointer to halt the run, but the damage was done as Portsmouth led 44-23 heading into the fourth quarter.

It only got worse for the Fighting Tigers as they made just one field goal the fourth quarter.

"Portsmouth is a good team. They’re very big and very athletic. We don’t match up well with them. But we’ll bounce back," said Barnes.

Ironton plays at South Point Tuesday.

@agate:<B>Portsmouth 15 12 17 21 – 65

Ironton 9 5 9 5 – 28

PORTSMOUTH (11-3): <B>Jason Fleming 2-5 (0-2) 0-0 4, Larry Berry 6-13 (0-4) 1-3 13, Greg McKinley 5-8 (0-0) 1-2 11, R. K. Thurman 2-4 (0-0) 4-4 8, Bradley Parker 2-6 (1-3) 0-0 5, Derrick Thompson 1-3 (0-0) 0-0 2, Antonio Malone 2-4 (0-0) 1-2 5, Jeremy Hamrick 3-3 (0-0) 1-2 7, D. J. Carter 4-9 (0-2) 2-2 10, Erick Storts 0-2 (0-0) 0-0 0. Totals: 27-57 (1-11) 10-15 65. Fouls: 14. Fouled out: None. Rebounds: 15-26=41 (McKinley 10, Thurman 7, Berry 5). Assists: 9 (Berry 4, Parker 3). Steals: 16 (Berry 7). Turnovers: 14. FG% – 47.4. FT% – 66.7. 3pt% – 9.0.

<B>IRONTON (8-8): <B>Drew Mains 1-4 (1-3) 2-2 5, Chris Haney 1-10 (0-1) 3-6 5, Josh Harmon 2-11 (1-3) 0-0 5, Tommy Lutz 2-5 (0-0) 1-2 5, Andy Brown 0-1 (0-1) 0-2 0, Andrew Harvey 0-1 (0-1) 0-0 0, Derique Bacon 0-0 (0-0) 0-2 0, Craig Lewis 0-2 (0-1) 0-0 0. Totals: 8-38 (4-13) 8-16 28. Fouls: 13. Fouled out: None. Rebounds: 4-15=19 (Lutz 5). Assists: 3 (Brown 2, Mains 1). Steals: 6 (Haney 3, Brown 2, Lutz 1). Turnovers: 23. FG% – 21.1. FT% – 50.0. 3pt% – 30.8.

<B>Junior Varsity: <B>Portsmouth 49, Ironton 46, OT. Portsmouth: Bolden 17, J. Parker 10. Ironton: Craig Lewis 17, Kevin Williams 13.