With the highest scoring offense in the Central Buckeye Conference, the Tecumseh Arrows ran into a buzzsaw on Friday night, as they fell out of the lead they shared in the division, and fell to Shawnee 53-43. They struggled in all aspects of the game, only scoring 15 points in the first half, and could never get in gear.

“We came out and played tight all night long, we didn’t well offensively all night,” a very disappointed Tecumseh coach Roger Culbertson said. “I don’t know if we were shocked they played zone against us or what. It shouldn’t be any different than anybody elses we faced this year.”

“The way we are shooting it, everyone will be playing zone against us this year. We have to figure out a way to knock down shots when it means something, not at the end of the game when we are down 20.”

It was a slow start for both teams, neither team scored in the final five minutes of the first quarter. Tecumseh took a quick 3-0 lead when Darius Quisenberry buried a three and increased their lead to 5-2 on a short jumper from Conner Henry at the 6:10 mark. But from there, it was a struggle for the remainder of the quarter.

Tecumseh couldn’t score, and went into the second period with a 5-4 lead much to the surprise of Culbertson.

The Arrows had their last lead of the game when Quisenberry hit another layup to give Tecumseh a 14-11 lead with 5:02 left in the second period. Shawnee then took the lead, and maintained it through the rest of the half, taking an 18-15 lead into the break.

Quisenberry did most of the damage in the third quarter for the Arrows, as he scored six of the 11 points for Tecumseh to keep them in the game. Henry added a free throw, then Wade Mastin connected on a three-point play with 1:05 left in the third period, and the Arrows only trailed 29-26.

Both teams battled in the early fourth period, before the Braves went on a run. After a technical foul against the Arrows allowed the Braves to push their lead out to 37-30 at the 4:33 mark, they scored the next six points all on free throws, Shawnee had a 43-30 lead with three minutes left.

Tecumseh tried to recover, as Malik Quisenberry scored five quick points to close their deficit to eight points with two minutes left, but that was as close as they could get.

Darius Quisenberry led the way with 13 points, while Malik Quisenberry added 13, Wade Mastin added six and Donte Clark scored five.

“There were a lot of fouls tonight, it was just a bad basketball game,” Culbertson said. “It set basketball back a few years.”

Tecumseh heads to Kenton Ridge on Friday night.