Northridge settled things in short order and turned a showdown into a runaway.
An 86-47 victory by the Polar Bears felt as if the result was decided in the opening minute.
Lehman Catholic was unable to handle the full court pressure applied by Northridge. The lead was 6-0 seemingly before the first minute ticked through and it only grew from there.
Credit: Steven Wright
“I thought it was our pressure defense, and the kids came out and played extremely hard,” Northridge head coach Jeff Lisath. “I liked seeing us helping and just (got) a lot of good rotations defensively.”
Sophomore Keonte Smith had a standout performance, scoring a season-high 32 points while throwing down three dunks and hitting his first three-pointer since the calendar flipped to 2026. He also had at least five blocks on defense.
Smith scored 15 points in the first quarter as Northridge built a 21-point lead.
“As we continue to go through the season, he’s gaining even more confidence,” Lisath said. “He’s getting to be more not so much lost in the offense, but more being a big part of the offense. And I like his attitude and his approach to it.”
Lehman Catholic lost its second straight contest after beginning the season on a 12-game win streak. Cavaliers head coach Jeremy Hughes identified his team’s three-game road stretch against Troy Christian, Urbana and Northridge as the toughest portion of the schedule. It became even more difficult after senior Turner Lachey, the team’s starting point guard, left school just before the holiday break ended.
After escaping with an overtime win against TC and collapsing in the fourth quarter at Urbana, Northridge’s pressure overwhelmed a tired Cavs squad that is trying to piece together its new lineup.
“Braden Ulbrich is doing a good job, but it’s a training wheels situation. He’s a sophomore and Turner’s been starting for four years,” Hughes said. “There’s going to be some learning curve with Braden to get him acclimated, and then what better way to acclimate him than our three hardest games. It’s going to be good for him in March.”
Northridge never took its foot off the pedal even as LC found some footing, leading 46-24 by halftime and growing it to 31 points going to the fourth before playing for most of the remainder of the game with a running clock.
“We knew everything that we’ve watched on film and everything I’ve seen, if we could weather Northridge’s first quarter storm we could be alright and be in the game because I’ve seen some teams I don’t feel as good as us be able to hang with them for the majority of the game. We just weren’t able to do that tonight,” Hughes said.
Senior Deonte Smith added 21 points for Northridge, and senior Dorryen Davis scored 10.
LC senior Shane Frantz overcame the slow start to score 20 points after entering the game as the league’s leading scorer.
Northridge’s average margin of victory is 41 points in conference play through the first half of the round robin. The Polar Bears have won its last six games by at least 21 points each.
Northridge gets its next chance to test itself when it heads to a big stage at 1:15 p.m. Monday, playing Margaretta and Dayton Flyers commit Julian Washington at The Beacon Orthopaedics Flyin’ to the Hoop event at Kettering’s Trent Arena.
Lisath said he could see the focus for Friday’s game begin in practice earlier in the week and felt they were ready to come out swinging. They will look to have the same effort when they head back to the court Monday.
“We want our transition game to work, but we’ve really been working in practice on our half court offense and things like that because there’s going to be games down the road where we need to do that more,” he said. “We still have a lot of work to do and hopefully we can continue to do that.”
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