The Brownstown Central girls basketball team held firm on their home court Tuesday as they ousted Trinity Lutheran 58-37.
Like their opener against Paoli, the Braves came out strong from the opening tip. Senior forward Brooke Ebbing continued her hot-scoring start by tacking on six points, and fellow-senior Riley Wischmeier tacked-on five points to help the Braves take an early 13-5 lead.
In the first quarter, the Braves were able to hold the Cougars to just six points as they led 16-6 after eight minutes. The Braves also caused the Cougars to foul 10 times and commit a handful of turnovers.
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“One of the things we like to do is drive to the basket,” Braves coach Karla Rieckers said. “We have some tall players, but they run the floor well. We want to continue to push the ball against everyone we play against. Getting them into foul trouble certainly helped us.”
The second quarter proved much of the same for the Braves as they amassed a 25-6 lead around the five minute mark.
At the half, the Braves stood firm at 27-15.
Five different Braves scored in the third quarter to help accumulate a 43-21 score.
The Braves rode out the rest of the game and emptied their bench as they cruised to the victory in the fourth.
“It was a very experienced, physical basketball team,” Cougars coach Mike Lang said. “Quite honestly that was the difference, experience versus inexperience. Our key points of emphasis were to try and contain Brooke (Ebbing) and Riley (Wischmeier), and we just don’t have the personnel to do that right now — a lot of teams can’t do that right now.”
Wischmeier finished with 11 points (7-11 free throws) and Ebbing led her team in scoring (20 points) and rebounds (13).
For the Cougars, freshman Maddie Roark led the team with 11 points while senior Sydney Stuckwisch nabbed eight boards.
“It’s 32 minutes more of experience, it’s 32 more minutes than we had before, that’s the way I look at it,” Lang said. “Each day we’re gonna keep getting better. I’m confident in this group. We’re not going to see the athletes that we saw tonight. If we can cut the turnovers down, do a better job locking-out and toughen up a little bit we are going to get this going in the right direction.
The Braves advance to 2-0, and the Cougars fall to 0-2 on the season.
“We have a senior-led team, and I think they’ve had some disappointments in some other sports,” Rieckers said. “We talk about leaving it all on the floor every game. You never know when it could be your last game so you have to play hard every single game, every single possession. Fortunately, they’ve been buying in.”