When it comes to offense, the Tamaqua boys' basketball team has no shortage of options.

Over their past two games, the Blue Raiders have averaged 73 points in commanding wins over Shenandoah Valley and Nativity, respectively.A key to that success has been the ability of head coach Caszy Kosciolek to get multiple players involved in the game plan, which has allowed for three double digit scorers in each of those contests.The trend continued during last night's Schuylkill League Division I game against Jim Thorpe, as Tamaqua once again got contributions from throughout its lineup in a 69-52 victory."When we really get it going well, I think we have three people that can legitimately score," Kosciolek said. "And I think that happened today."The catalyst for the offense early on was junior Russell Blaker, who scored nine of his 20 points during the first quarter, which helped Tamaqua (5-0, 4-0) race out to an 18-6 lead after the opening frame."Russell really got into a good flow and he played very well offensively," Kosciolek said of Blaker. "If he can get those offensive numbers with the consistency of Bo (Rottet) and Brett (Kosciolek) scoring the way they do, we can be a pretty good offensive team."Rottet finished with a game-high 21 points, while Kosciolek recorded 16 points, 10 of which came in the second half.With defenders typically so focused on Rottet and Kosciolek, Blaker was more than happy to take advantage of the opportunity."It's pretty nice for me because most teams tend to concentrate on Bo and Brett and that usually gives me a lot of open looks," he said. "They (Jim Thorpe) were playing zone early, and with Brett in the middle I was able to kind of stay in the corner and I was wide open in the beginning."Having to guard against an attack that was effective both inside and out proved to simply be too much for Jim Thorpe (2-3, 1-2) as the game wore on."We just have to communicate better, the same way Tamaqua did on our shooters," said Olympian head coach Jason McElmoyle. "You can pretty much pick your poison with some of the guys they have; they're all great shooters."And they compliment each other well. If we were able to shut one down, they would find the other guy. I think every one of them had the hot hand tonight at some point."Jim Thorpe managed to get to within 10 points at 33-23 early in the third quarter. But Rottet found his rhythm and buried three three-pointers to ultimately push the Blue Raiders ahead 56-35 by the end of the frame.After allowing only 20 points in the first half, Rottet admitted the early lead might have caused the team to lose its focus after the intermission."We got up on them big, but you have to give them credit for coming back," Rottet said of the Olympians. "We played great defense in the first quarter, but I think as the game went on we kind of got away from it a little bit and were maybe looking at the scoreboard too much."When you see you're up by 20 points, sometimes you can let off a little bit. But we can't do that. We just have to keep playing and put teams away. But give them credit, because they played tough."Jim Thorpe's second half surge was led by Jalil Veney, who scored six of his team-high 12 points over the final two quarters, and Matt Elmore, who recorded seven of his 11 points over the final 16 minutes of play.While it wasn't the result he had hoped for, McElmoyle noted he was pleased with the improvement his team has made."We just have to take it game by game," he said. "I'm happy with the progress they've made so far and I'm very happy with the way they played tonight. I thought we played a solid four quarters."JIM THORPECarroll 1-0-0-3, Veney 4-3-6-12, Elmore 5-1-2-11, Micciche 3-0-0-6, Green 3-2-5-8, O. Snisky 0-0-0-0, Luicana 1-0-0-2, McElmoyle 0-1-2-1, Jefferson 0-0-0-0, S. Snisky 3-3-3-9. TOTALS: 20-10-18-52.TAMAQUABlaker 9-1-1-20, Miller 0-0-0-0, Rottet 6-5-7-21, Skripko 0-0-0-0, MacDonald 4-0-1-8, Kosciolek 7-2-4-16, Shilko 2-0-0-4, Berezwick 0-0-0-0, Scott 0-0-0-0, Murphy 0-0-0-0, Coleman 0-0-0-0. TOTALS: 28-8-13-69.Jim Thorpe 6 14 15 17 - 52Tamaqua 18 15 23 13 - 69Three pointers: JT - Carroll 1, Veney 1; T - Blaker 1, Rottet 4.