By Jim Muir
The Benton Middle School boy’s basketball team fell behind early, put together a fourth quarter comeback, but fell short 32-28 to host Du Quoin Wednesday night in second night action of the Du Quoin Tip-Off Tournament. The Junior Rangers dropped to 1-1 with the loss and will be in action again on Friday night when they face Trico in a 6 p.m. match up.
Gehrig Wynn, right, has averaged 11 ppg. for the Junior Rangers in early season action.
Benton fell behind early in contest trailing 8-6 after the first quarter and 17-11 at halftime. BMS coach John Cook said his team’s game plan was to force the ball inside, but gave credit to the Du Quoin defense.
“Our approach offensively was that every everything we do starts with our bigs,” said Cook. “We wanted to pound the ball inside, try to get some easy buckets, draw some fouls, draw some double teams and in turn open up our outside shooters. Early on we were able to take advantage but as the game progressed they (Du Quoin) made adjustments and sent doubles to our inside players. We just weren’t able to kick the ball out and get shots off in time. Du Quoin is very athletic and their rotations are very quick.”
Cook also gave high marks to his team’s defense, noting that the Junior Rangers held Du Quoin’s top two scorers to four points combined.
“We wanted to make somebody else beat us, preferably from the perimeter, and they had guys step up and hit some big shots. I think we had the right game plan, but the guys we didn’t think would hit the shots … did hit the shots. In the end they just made more plays than we did.”
Both teams played even in the third frame and Du Quoin took a 28-21 lead into the fourth quarter, where Benton cut into the deficit but could never overtake the host Du Quoin squad.
“Our fourth quarter effort was outstanding,” said Cook. “We have to learn to play with that kind of urgency for all four quarters and we will be just fine. We are not going to let an early season loss define our season. We hope to see these guys (Du Quoin) down the road.
Benton was led in scoring by Blane Pankey who had 12 points, four rebounds, two steals and three assists. Also in double figures was Brett Bonenberger who had 10 points to go with three rebounds and a steal. Rounding out the Benton scoring, Gehrig Wynn had five points and Jared Curry had five points. Hamilton Page did not score but had eight rebounds and three assists and Parker Williams and Chase Maroon also played but didn’t score for Benton.
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