BLOOMFIELD
The Brownstown Central girls basketball team split their tournament pool play at Eastern Greene’s Toby Yoho Classic on Monday.
After losing to Clay City 55-52 in a sloppy contest, the reigning tournament champions defeated Edgewood 43-38 in their night game.
Against Edgewood, the Braves went on a 6-0 run to close the first quarter, behind five points by freshman Payton Farmer to take a 12-6 advantage.
A steal and layup by Brownstown’s Brooklyn Snodgrass opened the scoring in the second quarter, and the Braves would hold the Mustangs to just 13 points as they took a 22-13 lead into intermission.
Edgewood hurt themselves early from the charity stripe, making just three of 14 free throws.
After a basket by Braves senior Morgan Wehmiller, Farmer recorded five-straight points on two made field goals to put Brownstown Central up 29-17 at the 4:41-mark.
In a physical third quarter, Brownstown had eight fouls to the Mustangs’ six infractions heading into the final eight minutes of play.
“I can play a lot of kids, so I don’t think (fouls) was a big factor for us,” Braves coach Karla Rieckers said. “It hurt us a little on rebounding when Payton and Grace (Jaynes) had to sit — and we had to go really small. But, with the smaller group we can play faster. In the end, we held our composure. I would have liked to just have seen us not panic as much and hit more free throws.”
Edgewood opened the fourth on a 9-2 run, from four different scorers, to narrow the gap at 41-33 with five minutes left.
The Mustangs would get as close as 42-38, with 1:21 on the clock, as they held the Braves to no field goals in a four-minutes span.
With 18 ticks on the clock, up by five, Snodgrass secured the Braves’ victory by grabbing a loose ball that was poked by teammate Kristen Stuckwisch out of the hand of an Edgewood guard.
Farmer led the Braves with 16 points while Wehmiller and Jaynes each notched six.
None of Edgewood’s six scorers totaled in double-digits for scoring.
Rebounding, Farmer led the way with seven boards.
In their first game on the day, the Braves couldn’t hold on to a 33-22 halftime lead to defeat Clay City.
Clay City outscored Brownstown 35-19 in the final half to come away with the three-point win.
“We quit attacking the basket,” Rieckers said.” We took one pass and shot instead of working the ball. We had a look with two seconds to go and couldn’t get it to go down. We were a totally different team in the morning.”
Brownstown committed 23 turnovers in the contest with 20 fouls.
Wehmiller totaled 14 points and Shelby Stuckwisch noted 11.
The Eels were led by 15 points from Emily Rogers and 11 by Alisha Steward.
Farmer and Stuckwisch grabbed four rebounds a piece of the teams’ 20 boards.
“I think that our defense was totally different our second game. We played a lot more intense and scrappy — the way we need to play,” Rieckers said. “We weren’t quite ready this morning when it came to that. I was really proud of their defensive effort in that second game.”
The Braves will play Owen Valley at 1 p.m. today.
A later game will be scheduled dependent on results.