Boys Basketball: Bogan’s hot shooting too much for St Laurence

Updated: December 28, 2011 5:28PM

It is tough to beat a team when they shoot 70 percent.

Even when you shoot 56.5 percent yourself. St. Laurence drew first blood against No. 5 Bogan, but it was all Bogan after that, as the Bengals cruised to a 70-44 win over the St. Laurence at the Centralia Tournament.

The Bengals hit 31 of 44 from the field, an eye-popping 70.5 percent. St. Laurence was impressive as well, hitting 13 of 23, draining 56.5 percent of its shots.

“We tend to play to the competition,” said Bogan coach Arthur Goodwin. “The bigger the game, the harder we play. We just wanted to play hard today and come out with a win. It is an adjustment for us. We are quick and sometimes our opponents make a mistake underestimating us.”

Bogan took its first double-digit lead of the contest before the first quarter was over. Ronn Buckner drilled a three-pointer with 15 seconds to play to give it a 22-10 first quarter lead. They opened the second quarter with another trey, this one coming from Kendall Wesley. The Bengals limited the Vikings to just one Ryan Risley bucket in the first 2:30 of play in the second quarter. Risley, who drove the baseline and hit a layup, was the only interruption in a 7-2 run. At the 5:48 mark of the second quarter, Bogan led 29-12.

“We were about a second late on defense today,” Buckner said. “We left the backdoor open a few times. We started a little slow today. The woke us up a bit. We need to move our feet a little better in the next few days.”

Bogan led by as many as 20 points from the 2:00 mark of the third quarter. While Bogan outscored the Vikings by over 10 points in the first and third quarters, holding 22-10 and 21-9 edges, St. Laurence lost the second quarter and fourth quarter battles by one. Bogan, who ran a full-court press that produced 19 St. Laurence turnovers, started the stall early in the fourth quarter.

“They wanted to pull us out of our zone,” said Mark Sevedge, St. Laurence’s coach. “They wanted us to chase them and I was not about to give them the middle. The turnovers simply killed us. Bogan converted those into quite a few points.”

St. Laurence scored two buckets in the fourth quarter, one by Jim Schick and one by Matt Scott. St. Laurence got their other eight points from five trips to the line in the fourth quarter.

Buckner scored 20 points. Devonte Smith and Juwan Henry were also in double figures for the Bengals, scoring 13 and 10 points. Schick led St. Laurence with 13 points. Miguel Perez scored 11 for St. Laurence.

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