BARNESVILLE — Two boys’ high school basketball teams coming off tough weeks met Tuesday night inside “The Greenhouse” in western Belmont County. So, something had to give.

Garet Cramer and Dillon Lincoln each tallied career-highs as Monroe Central got back on the winning track by outscoring the host Shamrocks, 88-75, before a boisterous bunch of Seminoles followers. The win avenged an earlier loss.

“This was a phenomenal team win,” Monroe Central head coach Jon Perkins boasted. “Garret (Cramer) was the guy tonight, but there have been a lot of times it’s been another guys and Garet’s been the rebounder, the screener or whatever we needed him to do.

“This is a good group of unselfish kids,” he added. “I’m proud of them. we had a couple of tough setbacks last week in going to Shadyside and taking one on the chops, but the kids responded well. They play through some adversity and showed some resiliency tonight.

“This is a tough place to play. They have a good coach and a great player. We knew we would have our hands full. I thought we showed a lot of heart and grit.”

Cramer, a 6-foot, 280-pounder, did his best impersonation of Charles Barkley in the paint. The senior connected on 13-of-16 shots from the floor and finished with a team-high 29. Lincoln sliced and diced his way for two dozen markers.

“I expect that from him. A lot of people don’t, but I do,” Perkins admitted of his big man. “Garet is a phenomenal kid. He’s a class act and does things the right way. For his size, he’s one of the most athletic kids I’ve ever seen. When he goes to the basket hard, he’s hard to stop. He’s a truck in there, so tonight we looked for him a little more because we knew we had a mismatch.

“The other guys looked for him and weren’t selfish. They knew what the team needed to do, and they fed him,” Perkins added. “We were able to score off of him, too.”

The Seminoles (8-6) also kept their OVAC Class 3A playoff hopes alive while withstanding a 43-point outburst by Barnesville’s Luke Powell, who also grabbed a game-best 17 rebounds.

Powell was red-hot early on as he netted 13 points in the first quarter that helped the hosts to a 22-20 advantage. His third triple of the quarter with 7.1 seconds showing provided the margin. After Monroe Central’s Talin Babcock meshed one of two free throws to start the second quarter, Powell continued his torrid shooting with eight unanswered points as the Shamrocks took a 30-21 lead with six minutes left in the half.

“Early on Luke hit three after three after three and we were down nine at one point. We needed to get a stop and get a score and we did,” Perkins recalled.

Monroe Central went on a 16-3 run from that point and never looked back, even though Barnesville got to within nine with two minutes remaining.

Cramer and Lincoln evenly divided 12 points in the run, with Cramer’s conventional three-point play drawing the Seminoles even at 33. Lincoln scored while being fouled (he missed the free throw) and Cramer scored on the inside again for a 37-33 halftime lead.

Cramer put his team on his back in the third quarter when he scored 14 points (on 7-of-8 shooting) and hauled down five of his team-leading nine rebounds as the Monroe Countians put up a 30-spot. The Seminoles led by as many as 22 when Cramer made it 63-41 with just under two minutes on the third-quarter clock.

“We had a hard time stopping penetration. Once he got it we didn’t have the body to keep him out of there,” Barnesville head coach Matt Johnson said of Cramer. “Give them credit. They executed. They got ahead of us and kind of forced the issue.”

Barnesville, which relies on its outside shooting, was 15-for-45 from beyond the three-point arc. Powell finished with nine, while cousin, Kason Powell, had three among his 15 points.

“We fell behind and really didn’t have a choice. We were trying to get back in the game,” Johnson explained of the nearly 50 three-point attempts.

He said his team needs to figure out how to stop a four-game losing skid that has them at 10-5 and fighting for an OVAC Class 3A playoff berth, along with the Seminoles as both are chasing fourth-place Magnolia.

“We’re steamrolling in the wrong direction,” he allowed. “It’s just not a good state right now. The only option you have is to get right back to work and try to fix it, so that’s what we’re going to try and do. Hopefully, we can find an answer. We’ve got a tough test Friday with Caldwell.”

Auston Hogue chipped in 15 points and Luke Burkhart added 10 for Monroe Central. Babcock just missed double digits with nine. Hogue and Burkhart each grabbed eight rebounds, while Babcock had seven. Hogue also charted half-a-dozen steals.