BROWNSTOWN
Brownstown Central built up a 66-41 lead on South Ripley midway through the fourth quarter and coasted to a 68-58 win in a boys’ non-conference basketball game Saturday night.
The Braves held a 34-24 lead at the half before the Raiders cut the difference to 36-29 two minutes into the third quarter.
Brownstown Central followed up with a 10-0 run, and Brownstown coach Dave Benter said he felt that is when his team took control of the game.
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Click here to purchase photos from this gallery“We slowly pulled away, but our stretch in the third quarter (was important). We decided to go with a small lineup to kind of match theirs,” Benter said. “We had a stretch there where we played really well, and we were really disruptive to them.
“When we went small it made our press more effective. We were able to force some turnovers and generate some offense.”
The Braves caused seven turnovers in the third period after forcing eight in the second when they outscored the Raiders 16-9.
Gavin Bane hit two 3-pointers in the third quarter after scoring nine points in the second and he topped the Braves on the night with 18 points.
Cody Waskom also had a big third quarter with a 3-pointer and 11 points in the period. Waskom finished with 14.
“I thought we caused some difficult matchups with our post players,” Benter said. “I thought Jordan Peters did some nice things. He rebounded the basketball really well.”
Peters started out strong with three baskets and five rebounds in the first period to help the Braves to an 18-15 lead.
Carson Lambring was hot from the outside in the opening period with two 3-pointers, and a total of 8 points in the quarter, and he finished with 16.
“In the second quarter I thought we played well,” Benter said. “In the first quarter we were happy playing H-O-R-S-E and trading baskets. In the second quarter we were able to come out and get some stops and we were able to force some turnovers.
“I thought the third quarter was our best quarter. We had not played real well in the third quarter throughout the year. I thought Lambring did some nice things.”
Lambring also finished with three assists.
Benter complimented Cameron Luedeman for his play.
“I thought Luedeman gave us good minutes off the bench,” he said. “That’s encouraging to see. It’s been kind of a different bench guy each night that steps up. As the season goes on hopefully we can get some rotations.
“We’re trying to get Derek Rieckers acclimated and back in the lineup. He can be a big part of what we’re trying to do, but he’s still rusty.”
Luke Welch and Avery Halcomb topped the Raiders (3-2) with 14 points each.
The Braves are 4-0 and will play their next five games on the road.
“The big thing is we’ve got to move the basketball better,” Benter said. “We put a big emphasis on getting the basketball into the lane. There are times we do a great job of getting into the lane, there’s times we’re holding onto it too long. When we can get defenses to collapse we’ve got to make that extra pass. We haven’t done that consistently. We’ve done that in stretches but not consistently.
“We’ve got make sure that we are developing that mentality that we’re going to compete every possession defensively, and we’ve got to find five guys that are going to buy into that.”