HOWLAND – It wasn’t pretty, but Howland did just enough to pull out a win.

The victorious Tigers got enough offense in the second half to beat Newton Falls 45-31 on Tuesday night at Howland High School.

“Coach Sembach has 500 wins for a reason. I knew they were going to come in and switch up their defenses to confuse our guys,” Howland head coach Dan Bubon said. “Until you see it live, you can practice all you want, but we made a lot of bad decisions with the ball. We turned the ball over a ton, we threw the ball into the defensive guys’ hands a lot … just little things. When you’re young, this happens sometimes when it’s live fire.”

Howland (4-1) only led by five midway through the third quarter, but the hosts started getting some baskets to fall in the final minutes of the frame. Howland took a 36-27 lead into the fourth, and the team outscored Newton Falls 9-4 in the final period to hold on to the win.

Anthony Chieffo scored five of his 15 points in the fourth quarter for Howland.

“That’s what you expect out of him because he’s played the most,” Bubon said. “He started last year – the only returning starter – and we have a couple other kids who came off the bench last year, and everybody else is new to varsity basketball.

“We really just tried to tell them to go back and watch the film tonight, watch the speed that Anthony played at in the second half. It seems backwards to a lot of people, but when he had the ball, he played a lot slower than everyone else, a lot more under control.”

Darren Douglas added eight points for Howland, and the trio of Steven Bubon, Frank Hoso and Carter Saul each scored five points.

Cameron Huff led Newton Falls with nine points, and Travis Tursack added eight points.

For Newton Falls (3-3) is in the midst of a three-game skid.

Newton Falls started the game with an 8-2 lead, but things quickly fell apart. Head coach Roy Sembach wanted to see more from his boys on the court.

“I tell them, ‘We can’t begin to coach until we get effort.’ I’ve been very proud the first five games for how hard we played. Today, we didn’t play with energy and effort, and it’s inexcusable for a team with a bunch of seniors to not have effort and energy,” Sembach said. “Give Howland credit, they played well and could have won anyhow, but we have to worry about us. And where I’ve been very proud of our guys the first five games, I’m extremely, extremely disappointed in our effort, energy, enthusiasm tonight. We were not ready to play a basketball game … I have no idea why.”

Tuesday was the first of a five-game road swing for Newton Falls, who will return to action on Thursday to take on Crestview in East Fairfield.

Howland is back on the court on Saturday as West Branch comes to town, and both coaches want to see some progress from their teams as the season continues.

“The effort is there on defense, that’s always gonna keep you in the game,” Bubon said. “Hopefully our offense picks up a little bit.”