Highlands Completes District Seed Play with Convincing Win

Bluebirds Equal Last Year's Win Total

PHOTO: G. Michael Graham. Highlands post Ben Sisson goes up for a shot against Newport Central Catholic on Tuesday.

The win Tuesday was a nice win.

But the Highlands Bluebirds boys basketball team (13-9 overall) quickly went back to work Wednesday preparing for an equally important 36th District game against the Bellevue Tigers (6-15) on Saturday. Highlands matched the most wins in a season since Kevin Listerman became head coach in 2013 with a sound 68-47 home win. The Bluebirds finished 13-15 last year.

"We talked about that immediately following the game. We got into our regular routine," Listerman said. "The hardest thing is to maintain that level of focus and execution for an extended period of time and we talked about how important it is to strive for that. I felt for the most part we did a pretty good job (Saturday), especially on the offensive end. I thought we did a good job of moving the basketball and finding the open guy."

Highlands finished 3-1 in district seed play. Only a 66-64 loss against Newport on Dec. 17 prevented the Bluebirds from the undisputed top seed in the district tournament at Newport Central Catholic in February. Should NewCath, Newport and Highlands finish 3-1 in district play, the teams would have a draw for the one through third seeds.

Highlands has finished 3-1 in district seed play once since Listerman took over. That happened two years ago.

The Bluebirds made 27-of-50 shots for 54 percent including 11-of-24 from three-point range for 46 percent and 3-of-5 free throws for 60 percent. Highlands also had 10 assists and won the rebounding battle, 38-23.

Senior Ryan Leigh led the Bluebirds with 19 points making five three-pointers and post Ben Sisson recorded a double-double of 15 points and 10 rebounds. Senior Jack Hegge made three three-pointers on his way to 13 points. Seniors Alex Starkey and Nate Roberts recorded six points and six rebounds each.

Sophomore Luke Muller scored six points. Muller said the underclassmen take a lot of pride in preparing the main players in the rotation for games.

"That's one of the things as underclassmen the coaches look for," Muller said. "We just play as hard as we can so they're ready for that. This week, we were keying on one guy. I was acting as that one guy. It's good to help the team that way."

That main player for Bellevue was senior forward Tom Ratterman. Ratterman came into the game averaging 17.8 points per game. He made 5-of-12 shots for 15 points.

"He's their best player. He's a very good scoring threat from both inside and outside," Listerman said of Ratterman. "We wanted to speed the game up. I felt like we did a pretty good job of that. He had to earn everything that he got. That was good for us. We paid attention to the scouting report and made it pretty difficult for him."

Bellevue made 17-of-43 shots for 40 percent including 6-of-16 three-point tries for 38 percent and 7-of-12 free throws. No one else scored more than eight points for the Tigers.

Highlands plays at Cincinnati (Ohio) Anderson on Tuesday. Game time is 7:30 p.m.