BRISTOL — The Bristol Eastern Lancers had a chance to avenge one of their three losses from the season on Monday night, as they hosted the Berlin Redcoats boys basketball team. They successfully did that. The Lancers picked up their 12th victory of the season with a 72-47 win against the visiting Redcoats.
After taking a seven-point lead at halftime, Bristol Central outscored Berlin 41-23 in the second half, led by a 23-point third quarter. The Lancers had a well-balanced game played by their team, as they had four players score in double digits. Junior Jordan Chisholm led all scorers with 18 points. Senior Lukas Sword added 15 in the win and junior Zaveyn Tate helped out with 13.
Berlin junior Braeden Harris led all Redcoats scorers with 17 points and was the only Redcoat to score in double digits.
While the first game was a much more competitive game that saw Berlin win by one point, 56-55, their star player, senior River Eberhardt, was inactive for the game. Eberhardt scored 26 in the first game and hit the go-ahead game winning three with less than 30 seconds in the game. He will likely be out for the remainder of the season with a wrist injury.
Berlin head coach said the biggest reason why his team struggled Monday night was due to getting out-rebounded and not having a good game in the paint. That and not having his star player helped lead to the things getting out of hand.
“The first time we came from behind, and stole the game from them, so I knew they would come into this game hungry,” said Glowiak. “To compound that with River not playing, that doesn’t help, the difference was we got out-rebounded, we’ve been out-rebounded the last four games and you can’t win if you can’t grab rebounds.”
Bristol Central head coach Bunty Ray credited Berlin for playing a tough game without Eberhardt and said that his absence allowed his team to key in on other Berlin players such as Harris and senior Toby Lavender.
“I credit them a lot, they’re playing well without their best player, Eberhardt,” said Ray. “Nobody wants to see that, he’s an exceptional player, he beat us at their place, with 26 points. I thought their kids battled hard, but taking that piece off the floor allowed us to focus on some other things.”
After taking a 6-2 lead in the first three minutes of the third quarter, the Redcoats would allow Bristol Eastern to score eight-straight to gain a 10-6 lead midway through the quarter.
Harris kept Berlin within a few scores as he hit two back-to-back jumpers to get Berlin within two points in the final 2:21 of the quarter. The Lancers would score the final four points of the quarter to gain a 16-10 lead. Chisholm had seven first quarter points for the Lancers. Harris scored eight of Berlin’s 10 points. Harris would score 14 of his 17 points in the first half.
Bristol Central got their biggest lead of the first half when they went up 24-16 midway through the second. Lukas Sword scored six points in the quarter for Bristol Central including two baskets midway in the quarter.
Harris continued to score for Berlin, scoring six more in the second quarter, but Bristol Eastern was able to head into the second half with a seven-point lead with a more balanced performance in the first half than Berlin.
With the first half being a competitive 16 minutes, the next 16 minutes was controlled by Bristol Eastern. The Lancers opened the third quarter going on a 14-2 run in the first four minutes and seven seconds of the quarter. Tate scored six of those 14 points for the Lancers down low to go up 45-26.
A couple three pointers down the stretch by Berlin senior Jon Jon Morales kept the score within 20, as the Lancers held a 54-37 lead heading into the final quarter.
“They hit shots, they got in the paint, they had more personnel than we did,” said Glowiak. “Sometimes we play more off of our emotions than our execution and we have to execute better.”
Ray said that his team didn’t do anything special to catapult their lead. Like Glowiak, he mentioned his team having success grabbing rebounds and converting from playing possession basketball to running down the floor scoring in transition.
The Lancers outscored the Redcoats 12-5 in the final quarter before starters were pulled. Berlin only managed to score 10 points in the final quarter, resulting in a blowout victory for the home team.
Berlin will step back onto the court on Thursday. They will host the Platt Panthers at 6:45 p.m. at the Gibney Gymnasium.
Bristol Eastern will also play on Thursday but will be on the road. They will take on the Middletown Blue Dragons at 6:45 p.m.
With the win, the Lancers improved to 12-3 on the season while the Redcoats fell to 8-8.
As Berlin will head into the postseason without their star player, Glowiak emphasized that more rotational players are going to have to be ready when their numbers are called. Bunty likes where his team is at, but said there’s a lot his team has to work on before making a deep run.
