BROWNSTOWN
One day after an energetic victory over previously unbeaten Scottsburg, Brownstown Central’s boys basketball team was more subdued during an uneven but convincing 56-41 win over South Ripley on Saturday night.
Starting five seniors to counter an underclassmen-laden South Ripley lineup, the Braves (4-0) looked like the more experienced squad while racing to an early 17-4 lead.
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The Raiders (4-2) scored on just two of their first nine possessions, while Brownstown converted on eight of their first nine.
Between that early 13-point advantage and the game’s eventual 15-point difference, the Braves mostly held serve. Never letting South Ripley threaten, but also never really putting the young Raiders away.
“It’s weird, on the road we’ve played better and with a lot more energy than we have at home,” BC head coach Dave Benter said. “We played excellent last night (a 22-point win over Scottsburg). Tonight we really struggled in a lot of aspects. South Ripley started playing well and we didn’t respond.”
The Braves’ early 13-point lead came at the 3:11 mark of the first quarter. With 4:58 left in the second quarter, South Ripley had whittled that margin down to 21-17.
Over the next 100 seconds, however, two Matthew Garland three-pointers, a fastbreak layup by Isaac Johnson and a driving jumper in the lane by Michael Boshears pushed BC’s lead back up to 31-19.
In the second half, boosted by nine points from Johnson, BC built its lead to a comfortable 22 points midway through the fourth quarter.
But the Braves went scoreless over the game’s final 4:44 as the Raiders closed with a 7-0 run.
The ebbs and flows left Benter happy with his team’s two-win weekend, but frustrated by Saturday’s inconsistent effort.
“A lot of people say, ‘A win is a win,’ but I’m concerned with our lack of mental alertness and our physical effort,” Benter said. “We need to compete for 32 minutes, and we haven’t seen that yet. Our margin of error is not great enough that we can play like this and compete with the best teams on our schedule.”
Despite the concern, the Braves now own a perfect record through four games, with all of the victories coming by at least 12 points.
Johnson led all scorers with 19 points on 7-for-11 shooting.
“I thought Isaac played really well tonight,” Benter said of the 6-foot-1 senior.
Seth Borden followed with 10 points. Boshears ended with nine points and six assists. Garland and Braden Neal added six points each.