APPLYING THE PRESSURE — Toronto’s Austin Buchanan (11) and Colt Joynson (4) apply pressure to Weir High’s Syncere Stevenson during Friday’s game. - Andrew Grimm

After Toronto got off to a flying start, Weir adjusted its defense and chipped away at the lead.

In the second half, however, it was the Red Knights’ turn to counter, and they did in a big way, getting their offense going again and pulling away for an 81-48 victory.

The Red Riders (3-6) had trimmed the deficit down to as low as seven early in the third quarter, but the Knights (9-3) hit five of their 11 3s in the fourth quarter in running away with the victory.

“I’m very proud of our guys, they played hard, they play hard every single game,” Toronto head coach Sean Tucker said. “We’ve got some really good shooters, sometimes we get ahead of ourselves and aren’t as patient as we need to be. When we’re patient, things seem to fall better. We just had to slow things down, share the ball and good things started to happen.

Toronto’s Colt Joynson attempts a shot over Weir’s Ryant Lyons. - Andrew Grimm

“Give credit to Weir for making us do things we don’t normally do and turn the ball over, but we have just have to remember who we are and what we need to do.”

Red Rider coach Jason Angle liked the way his team responded after having to adjust, but ultimately a lack of being able to sustain the momentum and Toronto’s talented offense were too much.

“We came out trying to alleviate some of that offensive prowess we know they have have and my gamble didn’t work,” Angle said. “We had to switch it up on defense and it slowed them down some, we battled back and cut it down to seven. Our defense was playing pretty good and we were chipping away.

“When you cut a lead down to seven, theres no way you should lose by 30. We have a lot of things we need to work on. I don’t question the effort, we play hard, it’s a matter of mentality in certain situations and not turning the ball over. We see what we can do in spurts, we have to be able to put it together for the whole game.”

The Red Knights opened a 23-7 lead after one quarter and looked like they were going roll, but the Riders weren’t going to go away that was as they netted 20 in the second quarter and trimmed the margin down to 13 by halftime.

Weir High’s Kason Lash attempts a shot. - Andrew Grimm

Weir continued to push early in the third quarter, cutting the margin down to seven with a 6-0 run, but from there, the Knights found their groove again and started to pull back away.

Landon Grimes, who knocked down five 3s in the game, netted three of them in the fourth quarter as the Knights connected from deep on four-straight possessions to all but put things out of reach.

Senior standout Austin Buchanan netted a game-high 26 points also connecting on five treys in the game. Grimes tallied 23.

“Give Weir High a lot of credit, they out-played us in the second quarter,” Tucker said. “We didn’t execute anything well, we burned three timeouts … we had a talk in the locker room. We came out in the second half and started playing more of our style of basketball.”

For the Red Riders, Justin Kaczmarek came off the bench and netted a team-high 14 points, 12 of which came in the second quarter to help Weir get back in it.

Toronto’s Brady Fair shoots against a block from Weir’s Cayden Braswell. - Andrew Grimm

UP NEXT

Weir: Has another tough game on Tuesday on the road at Linsly.

Toronto: Hosts state-ranked Heartland Christian on Tuesday night.

Toronto 81, Weir 48

W 7-20-12-9 — 48

T 23-17-16-25 — 81

WEIR (3-6): DoBraska 1 0-0 2; Glyptis 1 0-0 3; Horstman 3 0-0 6; Lash 6 0-0 13; Braswell 3 1-1 7; Kaczmarek 3 6-7 14; Stevenson 0 1-2 1; Haught 0 0-2 0; Masters 0 0-0 0; Lyons 1 0-0 2. TOTALS 18, 8-12; 48.

TORONTO (9-3): Grimes 9 0-1 23; Joynson 5 0-0 10; Winters 1 4-5 6; Buchanan 9 3-4 26; Fair 2 3-6 7; Anderson 0 0-0 0; Bodnar 1 0-0 3; Gibson 0 0-0 0; Henry 1 0-0 2; Rebich 1 2-2 4; Barcus 0 0-0 0; Liddick 0 0-0 0. TOTALS: 29, 12-18; 81.

3-POINTERS: Weir 4 (Kaczmarek 2, Glyptis, Lash); Toronto 11 (Grimes 5, Buchanan 5, Bodnar).