For The Tribune
The Brownstown Central boys basketball team made things easy for Dave Benter to pick up his 300th career win as the Braves’ coach Friday night.
The Braves opened the second period on a 17-0 run to break open a close game against Scottsburg and roll 78-39 while improving to 2-0 in the Mid-Southern Conference.
Benter is 300-111 in his 18th season as coach of the Braves.
“It is a nice milestone,” he said. “It means I’ve coached here a long time, first of all, but it also means that I’ve a number of great players. I’ve been fortunate enough to have a great staff. It’s a great community with great fan support.
“I’ve got two former players on my staff with me, and another one at the middle school. It’s nice to see the community support that we have. The kids have bought into our program. We’ve been fortunate to not only have good kids, but kids that are tough kids and hard-nosed, and have a great desire to win.
“I’ve been really fortunate to be in that situation, and it makes it special back in your home town. As a coach, its tough sometimes in your home town because you don’t always make decisions that are popular with everybody, and even with people you know.”
The Braves pulled ahead 12-8 at the end of the first quarter, but Benter felt like the lead should have been a lot bigger than four points.
BCHS shot 5-for-21 from the floor in the first quarter.
“We got our transition game going, but we kept missing layups,” he said. “We were missing open 3s and shots in the paint. We were fortunate enough to rebound a lot of those, but we’ve got to be able to finish those as the season progresses.
“I thought our energy and effort was good. I thought Gavin Bane’s energy off the bench was outstanding. He came in and played with the kind of energy we need. He rebounded and passed the ball, and he scored the basketball. He did a lot of nice things.”
Bane scored 10 points and had six rebounds.
Zach McCory scored a basket on the Braves’ first possession of the second quarter to start BC on the 17-0 run.
Jacoby Shade’s free throw gave the Braves a 29-8 lead at 4:20 of the second period as the Warriors missed all six of their field goal attempts and had five turnovers as the home team pulled away.
“We talked about between quarters that we needed to execute and finish offensively,” Benter said as Shade made a pair of 3-point shots, and pulled down five rebounds, and Matt Nierman recorded a 4-point play on a 3-pointer and a free throw as the Braves outscored the Warriors 24-12 in the second to lead 36-20 at the half.
Mitchell Maegher finally scored for the Warriors at the 3:55-mark, but he had to leave the game later in the second quarter because of a foot injury, and was unable to return for the second half.
He finished with eight points and seven rebounds.
“It hurt them when Maegher went out,” Benter said. “He’s their best offensive player.
“We still weren’t finishing inside, but those things will come. This team will score the basketball. They’ve proved to me in the past and they’ve proved to me in practice. It’s just a matter of time before we get going offensively.”
Cody Waskom scored nine points in the first half and topped the Braves with 14 points, Shade had a double-double with 12 points and 12 rebounds, and Bane scored 10.
“Jacoby rebounded the ball really well tonight,” Benter said. “Cody Waskom has played really well the past two weeks. We need to put 32 minutes together as we get deeper into the season.”
A total of 11 players scored for the Braves, who finished 35-for-67 shooting from the floor and held a 33-22 advantage in rebounds.
“We’ve got some athletic kids,” Benter said. “I didn’t think last year we were as athletic as what we are this year. We’re able to pressure the ball and speed teams up. We had some scorers last year but we had to play a lot slower.
“Now, hopefully we can come out and get back to scoring the basketball and continue to make teams uncomfortable in their offensive end.”
Casey Smith topped the Warriors (1-4, 1-3 MSC) with 10 points.