The Pit was packed at Brownstown Central High School as the Braves hosted Scottsburg for an early Mid-Southern Conference battle.
It was grind-it-out type game, and Brownstown edged the Warriors 45-41.
“It was a very defensive-oriented game,” head coach Dave Benter said. “I couldn’t be more proud. I thought our guys battled physically all night.”
It was a low-scoring first half between the two conference foes.
Scottsburg’s Hayden Cutter came out and had nine points in the first half, giving the Warriors a 13-10 advantage after the first quarter.
Brownstown’s early contributions came from Carson Darlage, who was attacking the glass hard and had four first-half points.
“Carson Darlage was just an absolute man inside,” Benter said. “He guarded Cutter, he got every 50-50 ball it seemed like, he rebounded the basketball, he scored the basketball.”
Scottsburg was trying to keep the ball out of Jack Benter’s hand in the first half, and it did a serviceable job. Benter did get off some good looks that he didn’t make, and his first points came with 2:11 until halftime on an exciting play.
The Warriors had just grabbed an offensive rebound, but the Braves were able to poke it away. The ball was loose on the ground, but Darlage scooped it up and flung it ahead to Benter, who jammed it down with two hands to get the Braves crowd on its feet.
Brownstown held Scottsburg to just two points in the second quarter, and the Braves took an 18-15 lead into the break.
“We didn’t allow them to get many shots off,” Dave Benter said of his team’s defense in the second frame.
The third quarter was a back-and-forth affair as both teams traded baskets heading into the final 1:30, and that’s when Brownstown got a nice push.
Carter Waskom and Benter hit consecutive 3-pointers to give the Braves a 7-point lead heading into the final frame, 33-26.
That got Benter going a bit. He began the fourth quarter with seven-straight points for Brownstown. The first came in the paint for a layup, the second was a steal that he laid in on the other end and the third was a deep 3-pointer from between the 3-point line and half-court to extend Brownstown’s lead out to 12, 40-28, with 6:56 to play.
“We tried to run a set to get him a quick, easy basket just to get his confidence going,” Dave said of Jack. “He just got hot for a two-minute stretch just enough to get us separation. That was a huge stretch for us, too. That got us the separation we needed to win the game.”
Benter was spot-on about the breathing room created because the Braves didn’t score for the next four minutes, and Scottsburg clawed its way back into the game.
They got it down to four, but a pair of free throws from Carter Waskom and another from Benter put the Braves back up seven with only a couple of seconds left to play.
Benter led the team in scoring with 15 points, Waskom added 11, Darlage had 6, Aidan Schroer 5 and Bryce Neal and Levi Stahl each had 4.
“I thought overall, we had guys make different plays that we needed to,” Benter said.
The win improved Brownstown to 3-0 overall and 2-0 in the MSC.
It’ll be a quick turnaround for the Braves as they will travel to Madison today for a game with the Cubs.
“I told our guys to enjoy tonight, but 10 in the morning, we’ve got to be ready to go,” Benter said.