EAST LIVERPOOL — Steubenville, which returned the bulk of its team which reached the D3 regional semifinals last season, jumped out to an 8-0 lead in the first 53 seconds of the game and never looked back in rolling to a 99-68 running clock win over a youthful East Liverpool squad in Potter Fieldhouse Friday night.

It was the season-opening game for Big Red, but Steubenville looked in midseason form offensively as it placed four starters in double figures. Leading the way was returning All-Ohio junior point guard Santino Haney who poured in a game-high 34 points and was in double digits in assists in a little over three quarters of play.

“He plays hard,” said Steubenville head coach Michael Haney of his multi-talented son’s performance. “He’s a team player and passes the basketball and stuff.”

“Haney is the best player on our schedule, hands down,” lauded East Liverpool head coach Kade Reynolds. “He does it all. He’s got a motor that doesn’t stop and he’s really, really impressive.”

Other double figure scorers adding to Steubenville’s torrid, non-stop fast break offense were Tre’von Wiggins with 18 points, Cole Bowers with 17 markers and Jermaine Moore with 12 points.

Big Red finished with 11 three-pointers in the game, led by Bowers with three, Haney, Moore and Wiggins with two each and Braidyn Edwards and Jeremiah Hinton with one trey apiece.  

“We were kind of nervous, we only had eight practices (due to the football team’s extended playoff run), so we weren’t sure if we were in shape yet,” reflected Haney. “We lost two starters (from the regional semifinal team) and (return three starters) and pretty much the bench and everybody. We’ve got eight guys back.”

“They return three starters and three big pieces,” said Reynolds of Big Red. “They play unbelievably hard and play so well together. They share the ball.”

On the flip side, the Potters are starting one of their youngest teams in school history.

“We have zero returning lettermen and zero starters back,” said Reynolds. “We have one senior and 16 of our 24 kids are freshmen and sophomores, so we are very, very young.”

Despite its youth and opening against likely the best team on its schedule, the Potters played well offensively and placed three players in double digits, led by Dre’Keim Abercrombie who tallied 24 points, while freshman Javan Dawson had 18 points, including five of the hosts’ seven three-pointers in the game. Dre Brown finished with 10 points.

“As long as we take our lumps (with a young team) but we take them and we learn,” explained the Potters’ coach whose team is now 1-1 on the season. “We can’t take them and go backwards. We have to learn and grow from that and continue to get better.”

Big Red, led by its lightning-fast floor game, jumped out to a 35-21 lead after one quarter as Haney tossed in 21 points in the opening quarter.

Steubenville’s experience and quickness fueled its torrid first half. Big Red forced 16 first-half turnovers out of the Potters (24 for the game) with many ending in fast break points for Big Red which took a 61-40 lead at the break.

“Big Red probably shot the ball at 60 percent and kudos to them,” said Reynolds. “That’s a great program, but if we play the way we played tonight in the rest of our schedule we’ll win a lot of games and people in our league should be worried. We have to keep that same mentality moving forward.”

Haney led Steubenville in the first half with 27 points.

East Liverpool’s Abercrombie had an outstanding first half to lead the Potters with 19 points at intermission.

“I thought our kids got punched early and came right back,” praised Reynolds whose young team kept battling offensively.

Haney liked his team’s offensive performance but wants to see a better effort at the defensive end.

“Yeah, we played well,” said the Steubenville mentor.

“Defensively we didn’t play very well, we weren’t happy with that. In the transition, they scored 40 points in the first half, but offensively we were able to get up and down the court.”

Big Red took a 91-55 lead after three quarters on two free throws by Josiah Rea which started a running clock throughout the fourth quarter.

Michael Haney pulled all of his starters with 6:13 remaining in the game with Big Red leading 96-55. His reserves finished out the game.

“That (getting to state) is always a goal,” said the Big Red head coach. “But we always talk about one game at a time. We say we want to end up 1-0 (each game).”