WASHINGTON— The Brownstown Central boy’s basketball team kept rolling Saturday afternoon at the Hatchet House.

The Braves went on a 9-3 run over the final 2:22 of the opening period to take the lead for good and crushed Sullivan 67-41 in the Washington Class 2A Regional.

The Braves (25-4) found out Sunday afternoon that they will play Park-Tudor (20-5) at 10 a.m. Saturday in the Southport Semistate. Forest Park (18-9) will play Parke Heritage (23-5) at noon and the winners will play at 8 p.m. for the championship.

Braves coach Dave Benter said it was a good team effort the last half against Sullivan

“Chace (Coomer) and Parker (Hehman) played a good second half, and really everybody that played, played well the whole second half.” Coomer had 14 of his 16 points, and Hehman had all nine of his points in the second half when the Braves outscored the Golden Arrows 38-23.

Benter was not pleased with the start from the team.

“I didn’t think we were tough enough the first half,” he said. “I thought maybe they were tougher than us in the first half and that’s the first time in the tournament that a team has done that. I thought they were able to stay within striking distance because they beat us to a couple 50-50 balls, and beat us on the backboards a little bit.”

“Jack carried us the first quarter and then Micah Sheffer carried us the second quarter,” Benter added. “I really challenged our other guys in the second half to step up and I thought our whole team played well in the second half.”

Jack did carry the Braves in the first period by scoring all 16 of their points. He converted a 3-point play at the 6:24 mark to put the Braves up 7-2.

Sullivan rallied to take an 8-7 lead on a lay-up by Aidan McCammon at the 2:50-mark before Benter got hot again, and he closed the period with a 3-point shot that made it a 16-11 score.

Sheffer opened the second-period scoring with a 3-pointer, and added a short jumper and two free throws later in the quarter, and pulled down six rebounds in the period. Sheffer, who had a team-high eight rebounds to go along with nine points, said he really enjoyed playing in the Hatchet House.

“It was amazing coming in here to where the Zellers used to play basketball,” Sheffer said. “That’s something cool. When I was little I’d go to IU basketball games and watch Cody Zeller. He was one of my favorite players growing up

“Playing in this place really means a lot. It’s a unique gym, very cool.”

He said of his second quarter, “I got a little bit of confidence going. Early in the second quarter I hit a ‘3’ and a layup, and my goal has always been to kind of rebound and clean up everybody else. The ball just kind of fell in my hands in the second quarter and helped out the team.

“I think we’re a very good defensive team. A lot of people just talk about our offense and how well we can score the ball, but I think we’re one of the best defensive teams out there.

“That’s what we’ve focused on. We’ve always known we can score the ball, but they always say ‘defense wins championship’ ‘’

The Braves came into the game with a defensive average of 47. The Braves did not allow Sullivan to score more than 11 points in any quarter, and Coach Benter said he liked the Braves’ defensive effort.

“We get so much credit for our offense, we feel defensively we’ve come a long way this year. The last half of the season we’ve played at a high level.”

The Arrows committed 13 turnovers to six for the Braves.

Jack Benter topped the Braves in scoring with 25 points. He recalled having scored all the Braves’ points in the second half of one sectional game his freshman year.

The Braves, who shot 24-for-52 from the floor, made 12 3’s and 12 2’s. Coomer had four 3s, Hehman three, Benter two, and Sheffer, Pierson Wheeler and Lane Pendleton one each.

Aidan McCammon was high scorer for the Golden Arrows (21-5) with 12 points.

“I thought they were really physical with us in the post in the first half and we didn’t handle it. I thought we were hunting fouls instead of just playing,” Coach Benter said.

“We talked about moving the basketball. We had to get more stops and defensive rebounds to get our offense going and we were able to do that in the second half and that allowed Chase to get some runouts and 3’s, and Parker and Pierson, and allowed us to get more separation.”

Washington Regional Final

Brownstown Central 67, Sullivan 41

Brownstown;16;13;23;15;-67

Sullivan;11;7;13;10;-41

Brownstown Central (25-4): Parker Hehman 3 0-0 9, Jack Benter 9 5-6 25, Chace Coomer 6 0-0 16, Micah Sheffer 3 2-2 9, Lane Pendleton 2 0-0 5, Pierson Wheeler 1 0-0 3, Adam Stahl 0 0-0 0, Greg Hutcheson 0 0-0 0, Caiden Gwin 0 0-0 0, Carter Covert 0 0-0 0, Linkan Brittain 0 0-0 0, Drew Shelton 0 0-0 0, totals 14 7-8 67

Sullivan (21-5): Javyn Woodard 3 1-1 7, Marcus Roshel 1 0-0 3, Aidan McCammon 6 0-2 12, 2 0-0 5, Cooper Bock 4 1-4 9, Sebastian Ortiz 1 0-0 3, Carter Mischler 1 0-0 3, Paul Rigway 1 0-0 2, Seth Pirtle 0 0-0 0, Carsen Granby 0 0-0 0, totals 18 2-7 41

3-Point Goals: Brownstown (Coomer 4, Hehman 3, Banter 2, Sheffer, Wheeler, Pendleton), Sullivan (Roshel, Ortiz, Mischler)

Rebounds: Brownstown 20 (Sheffer 8, Stahl 4), Sullivan 25 (Bock 7, Woodard 6)

Turnovers: Brownstown 6, Sullivan 13

Fouls: Brownstown 12, Sullivan 10