CADIZ — In the midst of a hard-fought second-half battle, Harrison Central head coach Justin Clifford remarked to the referee that the game was “nuts.”

Thanks to Kobe Mitchell going “nuts” on the score sheet, his Huskies were able to come away with a 65-62 victory over Steubenville in front a packed and loud crowd on Tuesday night.

“I said to the official, ‘I’m nuts, everybody is nuts in here,'” Clifford said. “The crowd was, the kids were, their kids were, everybody was. It was nuts in here. That is why you play — to play in games like that.

“It was competitive. It was a good game all the way, up-and-down, back-and-forth. This is a good win for our kids because we have been working and trying to get better.”

Mitchell, Clifford’s star junior and the Division II East District Co-Player of the Year last season, netted 45 points for Harrison Central. He was 16 of 22 from the line, including 11 of 13 in the fourth quarter when the game was on the line.

“He had it going,” Clifford said. “When he looks like that, he’s hard to stop. They were running guys at him, diamond-and-one. We’ve seen it all. We know it’s coming.”

For Big Red (10-8), who led by three points going to the fourth quarter, sending the Harrison Central (10-7) standout to the line so many times simply became too much to overcome down the stretch.

“We were fouling the wrong guy,” Steubenville head coach Mike Haney said. “He was 11 of 13 from the free throw line. We wanted to try and foul other guys, but it seemed like somehow we kept fouling him. I know he has the ball in his hands a lot, but we had to get the ball out of his hands and foul someone else.”

Mitchell also did a lot of damage from beyond the arc, draining five 3-pointers. He made back-to-back triples to open the second quarter, on his way to scoring the first 10 points of the quarter to help the Huskies open up a nine-point halftime lead.

He scored 13 of the Huskies’ 18 points in the opening quarter.

“You have to take it personal when a guy scores on you, and he scored 45,” Haney said. “Our guys should be looking at that and taking it personally. Don’t let a guy just go to the basket or shoot open 3s. You have to take it more personal as a team.”

In the third quarter, Steubenville came storming back to take the lead, outscoring the Huskies 23-11 to turn the deficit into an advantage headed to the final eight minutes.

“I don’t think we had very much intensity in the first half,” Haney said. “We picked it up in the third quarter. We pressed a little bit, created some turnovers. We seemed to attack the basket more instead of setting for 3s. Against the zone, we settle for 3s too much.

Right from the start of the fourth, though, Mitchell was not going to be denied. He quickly evened the score with an old fashioned 3-point play, before the the rest of his work from the line.

Skylar Mazeroski made a couple of key buckets to help Harrison Central open up a five-point lead.

Big Red, though, did not go away quietly, as treys from Micah Krause and Chase Zimmerman cut the deficit to just two on a pair of occasions.

Mitchell’s free throws down the stretch proved to be too much, though. He grabbed a key rebound late that allowed the Huskies to run out the clock.

“We got a little tentative in the third,” Clifford said. “They got a little talking to in between quarters, and they responded. I’m glad they responded that way.”

Mazeroski was the only other Harrison Central player to reach double figures with 10 points, while also pulling down eight rebounds. John Vermillion grabbed a game-high 14 boards, while the Huskies outrebounded Big Red, 28-19. Cruz Capers finished with five points and dished a game-high six assists.

“We went and got it,” Clifford said. “We talked a lot about rebounding, and those two really went and got it and controlled the glass.”

Big Red was led by Calvin Bickerstaff with 17 points, while Krause finished with 15 — all from 3-point land.