Photo/SHERI McANINICH Buckeye Local’s Cameron Grabits (23) dribbles upcourt as Bellaire’s Creed Rhodes (32) defends Thursday night.

CONNORVILLE — It was a matchup of rebuilding, yet struggling, programs. But as the night wore on, it turned into a battle of teams looking like winners.

Coach Chris Heaton’s Panthers had opened the season with losses to five good teams with a total of 18 wins and were hoping and looking for the elusive first win. Coach Ben Doyle’s Big Reds started the season with a victory against Bridgeport and losses to four squads that were similar to Buckeye’s opponents.

When the dust cleared and the final buzzer sounded Buckeye Local picked up it’s first win of the season coming away with a 53-39 win over Bellaire on Thursday night on the Panther court.

On Saturday, both teams will be back in action with Bellaire (1-5) playing host to Bridgeport and Buckeye making a trip to Toronto to take on the Red Knights.

“It’s always great getting the first win off your back and stop chasing that one down and just worry about playing basketball,” Heaton said after notching his first career win. “We’ve played some pretty good teams so far and I think we played our hardest here tonight. It doesn’t get any easier, so we have to get back at it and get ready for Saturday at Toronto.”

“We worked on some different things, but having some time off and not playing on Tuesday, we worked on some different types of pressures,” the Panther coach added. “And it paid off for us in the first half. We were able to come out to a nine-point lead at the half.”

“I told them that the first two or three minutes of the second half were what was going to make or break us and I felt like they came out and played the whole game not in spurts like we have been.”

“We probably shot our best tonight,” he added. “We knocked five three-pointers and that was better than we’ve shot in the first five games. The way we played on defense was also a big key for us.”

In the opening period, the teams gave onlookers an exciting back-and-forth session as the Panthers managed to hold onto a slim 11-10 lead at the first break. Hunter Darrah, Jacob Moffo, Owen Long and Cameron Grabits combined for the Buckeye 11 and Jacob Marthaler, Levi Littell and David Zwack accounted for the Big Reds 10.

Buckeye started to take control of the game in the second frame opening a 27-18 lead at the intermission. Despite the Big Reds best efforts to stay within a bucket the their hosts, it was a conversion at the line by Grabits and then back-to-back treys by Grabits and Jake Mayle at the close of the session that extended the Panther lead.

In the second half, Buckeye’s pressure limited Bellaire to just four buckets and an early 6-3 spurt and a closing 7-2 run bolstered the hosts lead after three frames at 42-27. Six different Panthers split the third quarter scoring.

“I don’t know what our shooting percentage was, but it had to be low,” a dejected Doyle said after the game. “We’re having a tough time making shots right now. We are really struggling trying to score, but we will keep working on it, drilling it and work on those fundamentals.”

“Improvement happens in the gym at practice and that is what we are focusing on,” the Big Red coach added. “Hard work will help us improve and that’s what we have to do to get this shooting to improve.”

“We need to have confidence when we shot and right now we don’t have the confidence in our shooting. I’m confident in them, but they just need to be confident in themselves.”

Grabits led the Panther scorers with 12 points while Luke Darrah tossed in 10 along with grabbing four rebounds. Mayle finished with nine points, Hunter Darrah closed with four points, five rebounds and six blocked shots and Moffo added seven points.

Jacob Marthaler led the Bellaire scoring with 16 points, including a nine-for 12 effort at the line. Littell closed with seven points and Zwack added six.