Coach: Braves flawed in loss

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Brownstown Central girls basketball coach Karla Rieckers said she was disappointed in how her team played during its 69-51 Mid-Southern Conference against Eastern (Pekin) Saturday night.

“I’m really disappointed in our effort, I don’t think we gave the kind of effort that we normally give,” she said following the game. “I haven’t seen the stats yet, but I’d say they probably killed us on the board.”

That would proved true as the Braves only posted nine team rebounds throughout the game.

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Rieckers said the trouble was due to some fundamentals of gaining rebounds.

“We’re not blocking out, we’re standing in front of people and we’re not getting a body blocked out and it was just not a good effort on our part,” she said.

The game started with what seemed as though the Braves would stay with the Musketeers as the first quarter featured back-and-forth scoring.

The quarter ended at 16-15 in favor of the Musketeers.

The second quarter is when the Musketeers began to pull away as they hopped to a quick 25-17 lead.

The Braves began to face back-to-back turnovers and only scored six points in the second quarter and went into the locker room at the half down 32-21.

The second half started stronger for the Braves as they cut Eastern’s lead down to seven with quick scores and free throws from senior Morgan Wehmiller.

Eastern then answered with a three pointer from sophomore Rachel Stewart. Stewart had four three pointers on the night.

The rest of the quarter was back-and-forth and ended with the Braves down 49-36.

The fourth quarter began with a surge from the Braves as they went on a 10-2 run to open the quarter.

The Braves’ defense stepped up to force a few turnovers that the team was able to capitalize on. The Braves also used a strong performance from the line as they went 5-6 during the 10-2 run. The Braves were 18-24 from the line overall for the night, a 75 percent team free throw average.

Eastern answered with a run of their own as took the Braves on a 9-0 run to bring the score to 61-46 with 2:27 left in the game. The Braves then continued to struggle and dropped the game 69-51.

Rieckers said the team needs to focus on taking the preparation more to heart in the coming games as the team failed to utilize the opposition research.

“I can have scouting reports that show who the three-point shooters are and they can leave them wide open and they will bury shots,” she said. “It’s preparation for the game, it’s watching game film, it’s knowing who their shooters are and what we have to do. Numerous times they beat us down the floor because we weren’t aware of where they were or where we were supposed to be.”

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