The Martin boys’ varsity basketball team battled its way out of a mild mid-season slump Tuesday by trouncing Lawton, 50-34.

The Clippers led 15-7, 25-14 and 38-25 at the period stops.

Martin jumped out to an early 10-2 lead and never looked back the rest of the night.

“Our defensive intensity was where it needed to be right from the opening tip and Lawton struggled to get any quality shots off,” said coach David Curry. “Offensively, we showed good patience and executed well to give us a lot of good looks and capitalize on the defenses mistakes.”

Martin led by as many as 13 points in the second quarter, but did hit a bit of a lull and was stuck at 20 for some time.

“We got away from what brought us early success and missed a bunch of shots,” Curry said. “This comes from settling for what they were giving us instead of creating our own opportunities like we were earlier in the game.

The coach and his assistant, Robert VandenBerg, stressed to their players to continue doing things that gave them early success and keep the defensive intensity at a high level.  Lawton essentially stayed even with the Clippers in the third, but they were able to stretch their  lead throughout the fourth against their zone.

“Overall, we played pretty well tonight,” Curry said. “I was happy with our defensive intensity and our rebounding was outstanding as we controlled the boards by a 44-25 margin. We turned the ball over more than we should have, but not as much as we have in the last few games. It is something that we have addressed and hopefully we will learn to cherish the ball more when its in our possession.”

Senior center Tanner Curry had a terrific overall game, scoring 21 points, hauling down 18 rebounds, dishing out five assists and and coming up with five steals.
Carter Hilton added 11 points, Matt MacVean gathered eight rebounds and freshman Cayden Curry had six.

Martin, now 6-4 overall for the season and 4-1 in its Southwest Athletic Conference division. The Clippers had a rough week last week, losing to Delton by six points and to Bloomingdale by just one.

PHOTO: Tanner Curry (52)