BOYS BB: Berries get positive momentum with win over Oracles
· Yahoo Sports
Two sectional hopeful teams squared off at the Berry Bowl one week ahead of Hoosier Hysteria time.
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In a high scoring, highly entertaining game, Logansport overcame another slow start to come back and beat Delphi 79-70.
It was a game the Berries (12-9) got some good momentum going ahead of their sectional, where they got a good draw. They were coming off a 15-point loss to West Lafayette in the Hoosier Conference championship game when a slow start hurt them.
RJ Clem and Quincy Jackson had 21 points apiece to lead the Berries. Elijah Hopper scored 18 points in 14 minutes off the bench.
Eli Baldwin added nine points and Logan Lange had eight points and seven assists. Baldwin and Clem led the effort on the boards with six apiece.
The Berries shot 6 of 12 from 3-point range. Hopper was 3 of 4 and Jackson was 3 of 6 from distance.
Hopper was 7 of 8 from the field overall for his 18 points. His previous career high was nine against Rochester in December.
“What a night. And he played really good on the defensive end too,” Logansport coach Matt Lange said. “We always look at the scoring, but what he did on the other end was more impressive to me.
“And we hit shots, right. This last week in practice, we’ve been shooting a ton of shots because that’s what we’re gonna have to do. And I thought we shot the ball fairly well tonight from the outside. I thought our inside game, we missed a lot of the little bunnies everywhere that we’ve got to clean up. But we got some good guard play.”
The Oracles (12-10) handed Winamac just its third loss of the season last week before falling at Twin Lakes by 17 over the weekend. But they were sharp again Tuesday and led by as many as 10 in the first quarter before taking a 25-17 lead after one.
But the Berries outscored them 22-13 in the second quarter to take a 39-38 lead at halftime. The Berries extended their lead to 55-49 after three.
Hopper and Clem led a run to start the fourth and the Berries took a 65-51 lead on a Hopper 3 with 5:40 left in the game.
The Oracles were within 73-68 before the Berries closed the game with a 6-2 run in the final minute to win by nine.
“We knew Delphi was going to be scrappy, they’re not ever going to go away,” coach Lange said. “I looked at the coaches, we were up 14 with four and a half minutes to play. And we were starting to think about how we’re going to sub out because RJ was with four fouls. And boom, here they come racing back. So it was a good game. They’re a good team.”
Weston Brown led the Oracles with 22 points. Kaydyn McAtee had 18 and Levi Coghill had 12.
There was a game within a game as both teams have good size this year, with 6-7 junior Clem and 6-4 senior Baldwin from Logansport going up against 6-5 sophomore Brown and 6-9 senior Caulden Pulver from Delphi.
Caulden Pulver is second-year Delphi coach Chad Pulver’s youngest son. Coach Pulver said the matchup with the Berries should help his team going forward.
“We knew coming in here that this was going to be a tough team. They’re big, they’re strong, they’re fast, they’re very athletic,” he said. “I feel like our game plan was on target. At the end there, we let them get out on us and that extra six points, they were able to get those layups at the end that took us from a four-point game to a 10-point game and it happened super fast. So that’s hard for us to digest and not feel a little bit of indigestion about it.
“But our guys fought really hard. It was good physical game. We’re a physical team. We don’t back away from it. I felt like this was a good test for us coming to a great gym against a good team and hopefully it will harden us up a little bit for sectional.”
Both Logansport and Delphi are hosting a sectional this year and both got a good draw with the favorite being on the other side of the bracket. West Lafayette is the favorite of the Class 3A Logan Sectional and Seeger is the favorite of the Class 2A Delphi Sectional.
The Berries host another team in the Delphi Sectional, Benton Central (9-13), on Friday for senior night. It’s a night when the Berries will celebrate Felix the Cat’s 100th birthday as the school mascot.
“It’s a big one. It’s a lot,” coach Lange said. “Senior night for coaches can be tough and it’s gonna be a bad one for me because my son’s a senior. But senior night is hard for coaches because everything’s out of kilter. And Benton Central’s a good team. They’re not gonna come in here and lay down. And there’s a lot of stuff going on with Felix with his 100th birthday. So it’ll be different for our boys. I’m hoping there’s a big crowd they get to play in front of because they deserve it.”