The Mentor Cardinals were the 80-66 winner over the Brunswick Blue Devils when they last played one another back in February of 2023, but their luck changed this time around. Mentor took a 76-68 hit to the loss column at the hands of Brunswick on Monday. Having run the score up that high, both teams probably have some extra defensive drills coming up.
Mentor's loss came despite strong showings from Matthew Biddell and Ian Ioppolo. Biddell scored 24 points along with seven rebounds and six assists, while Ioppolo dropped a double-double on 25 points and 11 rebounds. That was a full 35.3% of Mentor's points, marking the third time in a row he's earned more than a third of the team's points. The team also got some help courtesy of Connor O'brien, who scored seven points along with two steals.
Mentor's defeat dropped their record down to 8-5. As for Brunswick, the win was the fifth in a row for them, bringing their record for this year to 14-2.
Mentor will head out on the road to face off against Medina at 7:30 p.m. on Friday. As for Brunswick, they won't have much time to rest: their next contest is against Nordonia at 7:15 p.m. on January 30th. Nordonia will have to bring their A-game into this one, as they are staring down a pretty big deficit in the MaxPreps Ohio Rankings (they are ranked 288th, while Brunswick is ranked 25th).
