Lancers fall short in SWC loss to Edwardsville
Solid effort is not enough for East
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| John Swistak Jr. photo Belleville East's Taylor Evan (32) goes up for a shot while being guarded by Edwardsville's Joseph Hines. |
The Lancers (3-2 overall, 0-1 in the Southwestern Conference) got back within two points at halftime but never regained the lead as Edwardsville improved to 3-0 overall and 2-0 in the SWC.
"I thought Belleville East played a good game," said Tigers coach Mike Waldo. "They played well defensively and they played hard with a lot of effort. They're athletic and they're a very good team, so this was a good win for us."Hogg, a 6-foot-1 senior, scored at least five points in each quarter.
"He's got long strides and he's got such good body control and he seems to be able to finish," said Ray Hoffman, East's first-year head coach. "We started to figure it out a little bit, but I have a team with very little varsity experience.
"We started trying to take some charges and we started rotating a little better. (Hogg) wasn't as effective in the second half, but he's good at what he does. Mike (Waldo) wants the ball in his hand down the stretch."
"Brandon is a very good rebounder and I thought he did a really good job of handling the ball tonight," Waldo said. "He had a very good game offensively and defensively."
A 3-point play by Tramall Ferguson gave the Lancers an 11-8 lead with 1:18 to play in the first quarter, but a putback basket by Joseph Hines capped a 13-0 Edwardsville run and gave the Tigers a 21-11 lead with 5:26 remaining in the second quarter. A basket by Anthony Campbell gave EHS its biggest lead of the game, 25-13, with 3:25 to play.
"We got a little frustrated there," Hoffman said. "They were doing a good job against our sets and we weren't finishing and they were. They got a good run on us and we had trouble stopping us, but once we stopped it and got our composure, we got right back in the game. Our kids played hard.
"I give them a lot of credit. They did the things they do well, but we battled with them."
Belleville East answered the Tigers' run with a 14-4 run of its own, as a trey by Ferguson brought the Lancers within two points (29-27) at halftime.
Edwardsville, though, quickly regained the momentum in the third quarter, as a 3-pointer by Campbell made the score 36-27 with 4:45 remaining.
"Our guys did a good job of continuing to do the things that we practiced," Waldo said. "We had some bad things happen to us at the end of the first half, but we were able to overcome that well."
East got within five points (48-43) on a trey by Kevin Pettiford with 1:08 to play in the fourth quarter. But a free throw by Hogg boosted Edwardsville's lead to 5-143 with 34 seconds left.
"(Pettiford) hit some threes and that helped us, but I didn't think we shot the ball as well tonight as we're capable of," Hoffman said. "We had some decent looks and we did some nice things and if a couple of those shots go in, we're right there.
"We had some nice post feeds where we came up a little bit short. We had the right guys shooting the ball, but it just wasn't their night."
Campbell scored 16 points for Edwardsville while Will Triggs (10 points) gave the Tigers three players in double figures.
Taylor Evan led East with 14 points, including 11 in the first half. Kevin Miller and Pettiford added 12 and 10 points, respectively.
"We wanted to keep No. 32 (Evan) from shooting and we wanted to keep them from scoring baskets in the low post," Waldo said. "For the most part we did a good job of that. No. 25 (Ferguson) made some threes in the first half and got them back in the game and those were shots that we were giving them, so defensively I thought we did an outstanding job."
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