BROWNSTOWN
Brownstown Central’s boys basketball continued its dominance of the Mid-Southern Conference with a 69-30 win over Eastern (Pekin) Friday night.
Beating the Musketeers, BCHS (15-5, 9-0) claimed its 20th MSC title since joining the conference in 1965. The title is the 11th for Dave Benter in his 21st season as head coach of the Braves.
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The Braves have won outright or shared the title in eight of the last 10 seasons.
Benter said it means a lot to win another MSC trophy.
“It’s a great feeling, Benter said, “It’s a grind throughout the year. There are some nights we don’t bring our best game but it says something about our guys. They put together nine games throughout the season, and we had some big wins throughout the year.”
The Braves took control of the start by scoring the first 16 points of the night.
Braden Neal, Ethan Wischmeier, and Isaiah Wineinger made 3-pointers during that stretch.
The Musketeers shot 0-for-7 and had four turnovers during that time.
Eastern finally got on the scoreboard when Rhett Pennington made a free throw with :59 seconds left in the quarter. The Braves shot 7-for 14 from the floor and lead 18-2 at the break. The Musketeers missed all eight of their shots.
Tevin Jeter made Eastern’s first basket of the game, a 3-pointer at 7:12 of the second quarter.
“We got off to a good start,” Benter said. “Eastern is rebuilding and we knew that going into the game. We have to be careful and not get sloppy and not careless with the basketball, taking bad shots and not competing on defense. I thought our guys were focused in the first half, we made extra passes, we defended in the first half so that was good to see.”
The Braves kept up their hot shooting in the second quarter with Matthew Garland, Wischmeier, Michael Boshears, and Clay Chastain all made 3-pointers and the Braves shot 11-for-14 to outscore Eastern 27-10 and lead 45-12 at the half.
After Eastern scored the first two points of the third period, the Braves went on an 11-0 run to build their lead to 56-14.
Chastain made his second 3-pointer of the game and Eli Brown also made a 3-pointer in the fourth quarter, giving the Braves nine for the game.
Boshears topped the Braves with 15 points, Isaac Johnson scored 11, and Seth Borden was high rebounder with eight.
The Braves outrebounded Eastern 35-15, and for the game shot 23-for-53 while Eastern was 9-for-42.
Pennington was high scorer for the Musketeers (1-21) with seven points.
“We need to continue to get better. We talked before the game that we want to feel good about, if we win, and we played really well. We had a lot of guys play well tonight,” Benter said.
The Braves will travel to Providence tonight.