KARNS CITY — From the opening tip, revenge was on Karns City's mind.

The Gremlins got much more than that.

KC (12-1) jumped out to an 11-0 lead, never trailed and led by as many as 32 in rolling past Redbank Valley, 73-45, in District 9 boys basketball Tuesday night in the Karns City gym.

The victory was the Gremlins' eighth straight and avenged their only loss — a 54-52 setback at Redbank Jan. 16 — this season.

“We feel like we missed an opportunity that night,” KC coach Chris Bellis said. “Our guys wanted to come out tonight and show we should have won that game.”

Senior point guard Chase Beighley scored the game's first 11 points as the Bulldogs (7-3) did not register a field goal until early in the second quarter.

“That never happens to us,” Redbank coach Emmanuel Marshall said. “We didn't finish shots. When you play a team like Karns City, you have to put up points and we didn't.”

Beighley did — particularly in the first half.

He scored 24 points in the first two quarters, sinking 10 of 11 shots from the floor, including four treys. Beighley finished with a game-high 29 points.

Karns City had a 36-19 lead at the half, Beighley sinking a trey at the buzzer to push the lead to 17.

When the Bulldogs began taking Beighley's offense away in the second half, other Gremlins got into the act.

“That's the big difference in us this year,” Beighley said. “I felt like I had to score 25 or 30 points every game last year for us to have a chance to win.

“Take me away and we have plenty of other scoring. I was held to nine against Keystone and Nathan (Waltman) hit for 25. Luke Cramer had a big game for us tonight and he's a freshman.”

Cramer scored 16 points. Junior guard Cole Sherwin connected on a trey at the buzzer ending the third quarter, stretching the KC lead to 53-33.

Beighley wound up with six rebounds and five assists. Cramer had five rebounds to go with his 16 points and Waltman produced 12 points — all in the fourth quarter — and 10 rebounds despite riding the bench much of the night in foul trouble.

“Nate did a good job of handling adversity that way. He found a way to contribute,” Bellis said.

Sherwin had eight points and Taite Beighley pitched in with five assists. A Luke Garing layup gave KC its biggest lead of the night at 71-39 with 2:30 to play.

“That's what happens when you have more than one good player on your team,” Marshall said of Karns City. “They have five really good players and they played together tonight.

“We didn't play good defense, we didn't rebound well ... they just beat us.”

Redbank Valley's trio of Bryson Bain, Marquese Gardlock and Chris Marshall began the night averaging a combined 55 points per game. They were held to 43 Tuesday, 12 of those coming in the fourth quarter after the issue had been decided.

“We've been waiting for this game since the night they beat us,” Beighley said. “We were focused and ready.”

Marshall had 18 points for the Bulldogs while Bain had 16 points and seven boards, Gardlock nine points and five rebounds.

Karns City had a 36-26 edge on the boards.

“Their three scorers are all threats in different ways,” Bellis said. “We had to defend them in different ways. We went over our defensive game-plan in practice and the kids executed it extremely well.”

Karns City returns to action Thursday, hosting Clarion.

“That's another big one. They're playing better than Redbank right now,” Bellis said. “We have to be ready.”

REDBANK VALLEY 45Bryson Bain 4-9 8-10 16, Marquese Gardlock 3-11 3-7 9, Chris Marshall 6-15 6-8 18, Joe Mansfield 1-1 0-1 2, Owen Harmon 0-0 0-0 0, Landon Pence 0-3 0-0 0, Owen Harmon 0-0 0-0 0, Ty Sherry 0-1 0-0 0, Owen Clouse 0-0 0-0 0. Totals: 14-40 17-25 45.

KARNS CITY 73Eric Booher 0-0 0-0 0, Cole Sherwin 3-9 0-0 8, Taite Beighley 1-4 0-0 2, Micah Rupp 0-2 0-0 0, Chase Beighley 12-19 0-0 29, Luke Cramer 7-14 2-2 16, Jacob Callihan 0-1 0-0 0, Luke Garing 3-4 0-0 6, Nathan Waltman 6-10 0-0 12. Totals: 32-62 2-2 73.Redbank Valley 2 17 14 12 — 45Karns City11 25 17 20 — 733-point goals: C.Beighley 5, Sherwin 2JV: Redbank Valley, 48-38 (RV: Trevor Rearick 14, Cam Wagner 12, Owen Clouse 11; KC: Braden Grossman 15Thursday: Clarion at Karns City