CORYDON
Brownstown Central completed a sweep of Mid-Southern Conference games over the weekend, but it didn’t come easy.
The Braves’ boys basketball team survived a late Corydon Central scoring spree to pull out a 58-55 MSC win on Saturday, finishing 3-for-3 on conference games last week.
Off the opening tip, it appeared the Braves would come away with a quick victory.
Cameron Luedeman hit a 3-pointer before Michael Boshears added five straight points to put the Braves (11-4, 5-2 MSC) up 8-0 with 6:28 left in the first quarter.
Boshears added seven more points and Ethan Wischmeier got a trey to fall before a 3-pointer by the Panthers’ Logan Murphy at the buzzer cut the Braves’ lead to 18-9.
The Panthers chipped away at the Braves’ lead before a 6-0 run put the visitors up 28-17 with 2:30 on the clock.
In the final 2:03 of the half, the Panthers outscored the Braves 8-2. In that span, Joey Wiseman hit back-to-back 3-pointers for the Panthers.
At the half, the Braves led 30-25.
Boshears scored seven of the Braves’ first 10 points of the third quarter to put the Braves up 40-28 three minutes into the second half.
Spurred by a four-point play by Boshears, the Braves went on a 7-0 run to go up 48-31. However, in the final 1:27 of the third quarter the Panthers also put up seven unanswered points.
At the end of 24 minutes of play, the Braves were up 48-38.
The Panthers went on a 9-2 run to open the fourth quarter, pulling within three points with five minutes left.
A basket by Braden Neal and putback by Seth Borden put the Braves up 54-48 with 2:55 left, but the Panthers wouldn’t go away.
The Panthers got a quick bucket and made 3 of 4 free throws to bring the score to 56-53 with 38 ticks left on the clock.
Luedeman hit two free throws but a basket by Bradley Nalley with 18 seconds left made it 58-55 with 18 seconds left.
The Panthers were able to get the ball back for one more shot, but Neal blocked a potential game-tying 3-pointer at the top of the arc with one second left to help seal the Braves’ win.
“Corydon didn’t quit,” Braves coach Dave Benter said. “They kept coming at us. They’ve struggled this year, but they have Nalley back and are now a completely different team. It’s hard to get over that mental hurdle when you’ve lost some games.”
While the team picked up the victory, Benter wasn’t pleased with how the Braves finished the game.
“I’m really disappointed in our guys,” Benter said. “We were up 17 in the third quarter. We’ve got to learn, at some point. We’ve lost two games so far this year that we’ve had big leads in. We’re 11-4 but should be 13-2. We asked them what it’s going to take for us to learn.
We need to stay disciplined and keep doing the things that got us those leads. We went away from that, and started getting really loose with the basketball, weren’t digging in defensively and getting box-outs. It was a combination of things. We’ve got to figure it out at some point. Once you get to the tournament, teams aren’t going away even if they’re down.”
Boshears led all scorers with 29 points and Lueeman added 14. Braydon Beauchamp topped the Panthers with 22 points, Wiseman scored 14 and Nalley had 12.
The Braves outrebounded the Panthers 29-28 and both teams had 16 turnovers.
Benter expects the team to start putting away games, and still competing for the MSC.
“It’s going to be difficult for us to win (the MSC) with Silver Creek not having a loss yet, but we’ve got at least a chance to tie for second,” Benter said. “We’ve finished in the top two (of the MSC) for a lot of years in a row. We talked about having a good week. It’s disappointing with how the last 10 minutes went, but I thought early in the game we really competed. In the first 22 minutes of the game we competed, attacked the lane and were physical. We just need to be better mentally — that’s our big thing.”
Brownstown will next host Columbus East on Thursday.