STEUBENVILLE — It wasn’t perfect, far from it. And, it wasn’t Big Red’s best performance. But, what is was, however, was another dominant win for the Steubenville boys basketball team.

After a bit of a slow start, Big Red slowly but surely pulled away from visiting Martins Ferry inside the Crimson Center on Tuesday night for a 90-57 victory over the Purple Riders.

“We talked about it after the game, we’ve got to start faster,” Big Red head coach Mike Haney said. “We had 22 on the board after the first quarter, but it felt like we were a step slow in rotations and defensively giving up some easy buckets.

“In the second quarter we had a sequence where we had steals and layups the other way on three or four straight possessions and that really got us going.”

After holding a 6-4 lead early on, Big Red (11-1) scored the next nine and went on a 13-2 run, opening a 22-11 lead after one.

The Riders (8-6) made a couple of attempts to push back into the game, but the deficit was never again below double digits.

“Martins Ferry is a good team, it’s a shame (Gavin Little) was hurt, he could have really helped them but they’re well coached and came in here with eight wins so we knew they would be a challenge,” Haney said.

Big Red led 47-27 at halftime and pushed the margin to 66-45 after three before netting another 24 points in the final quarter.

Santino Haney, who recently surpassed the 1,000 career point mark on the road and was recognized for the achievement prior to the game, led the way with a game-high 24 points. He also entered the week as the leading scorer in OVAC Class 5A, in which Big Red leads the current team standings.

Haney was one of four to reach double figures in the win as Jermaine Moore netted 16, Landon Bowers 14 and Cole Bowers 12 and a team-high six rebounds.

“That’s always a good formula for us, we always want to have at least three in double figures and getting a fourth really helps a lot,” Coach Haney said. “It’s good to share the ball.”

For Martins Ferry, Elijah Smith led the way with 20 points and eight rebounds. Anthony Booth tallied 12 and five.

UP NEXT

Martins Ferry: Travels to Harrison Central on Thursday.

Big Red: Has two more big games this week, at Wheeling Park tonight and St. Thomas Aquinas on Friday.

“We’re at the time of the year where they’re all big games, we want to keep positioning ourselves in the standings in the district and OVACs and get home games,” coach Haney said. “We have a lot of big games left to go.”