Staff writer
Centre boys’ basketball team finished its regular season with a bang last week with a 70-57 victory over Peabody-Burns and a 61-52 victory over Blue Valley-Randolph.”
“We are a team whose Achilles’ heel is the first quarter,” Coach Richard Idleman said. “We were behind 14-5 in the first quarter, improved to 29-21 at halftime, and progressed from there. We shut them down in the third quarter, holding them to 6 points, and we scored offensively to take a 40-35 lead.”
Idleman said the secret to their victory was changing from a zone defense in the first half to man-to-man in the second.
“Cole Srajer shut down their leading scorer in the second half, and Brendon Bina and Cody Svoboda did a good job of guarding their second-leading scorer,” Idleman said.
Three Cougars finished in double figures: Srajer, 26; Cole Methvin, 12; and Nathaniel Engler, 10.
“Without question, it was a good game,” Idleman said. “We showed that when we were down, we could come back up.”
The team finished the regular season with a record of 6-14.
Victories have been hard for the Lady Cougars to find this season. After defeating Peabody-Burns 46-31 earlier in the week, they struggled to put points on the board against Blue Valley-Randolph and were defeated 49-25. A 2-point 7-5 deficit in the first quarter continued to build as the game progressed, leading to a 24-point loss.
The girls ended the regular season with a record of 5-15.
Both teams lost to Clifton-Clyde in a substate tournament at Wakefield on Tuesday, ending their season.
Girls lost 34-29, and boys lost 52-42.