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Ethan
Bruns goes up for two Saturday night against Franklin Monroe.
Bruns tallied six on the night as Versailles rolled to a 55-33 victory
over
the Jets. CNO Photos by George Starks
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Tigers top Jets in a
slam dunk
By George Starks
VERSAILLES- Versailles got the party started Friday against Minster and
ended it Saturday with Franklin Monroe. After taking their frustrations
out on the Wildcats Friday in a 69-50 MAC victory, the Tigers backed it
up with a 55-33 non-conference victory over the visiting Jets.
Led by Nick Campbell with 19 and Chad Winner’s 15, it was the bench
that shined for the Tigers.
“Our bench has been giving us some excellent minutes lately,” said
Tiger coach Scott McEldowney. “Damian Richard was sick tonight and that
scared me a little but senior Lee Kindell stepped in and bought us some
extra minutes tonight. I thought the bench played extremely well
tonight.”
It was another night at the office for the Tigers. Taking a 22-10 first
quarter lead, Versailles was in control from beginning to end.
“The kids came out in the right frame of mind,” McEldowney said. “I
told them if they are going to make a long tournament run, we have to
come ready to go every night. Anyone can beat you and if you don’t come
ready to play, you don’t get a chance to bounce back. I told them I
want them to look at every game as a tournament game and come ready to
play.”
With FM sitting in a 2-3 zone, McEldowney decided to make them come out
of it.
“They weren’t hurting us in the zone,” McEldowney said. “So we decided
to pull it out and make them play man on us. We were able to take
advantage of our size and play our style of basketball.”
Versailles led at all the breaks, 22-10, 32-16 and 42-24, using a
stellar defense in the second and third frames to hold the high flying
Jets to a mere 14 points in the two middle quarters combined.
Take nothing away from the Jets. Marcus Bixler’s kids were ready to
play.
“We came out ready and we battled them the whole game,” Bixler said. “I
thought we had some mental lapses there in the first half. We didn’t do
a good job bumping down to our corners and getting the corner three’s
taken. If we were mentally focused in the first half, we have that
problem taken care of.”
Even though the final score showed a 22 point difference, Bixler was
pleased with some things his team did.
“I thought we did a great job on the glass and keeping them off of it,”
Bixler stated. “I think they had just three offensive boards in the
first half. We played hard and saw some good things out of our younger
guys.”
Trey Mong paced the Jets with 14 points while Travis Feitshans netted
11 in support.
Playing eight games in 16 days, Bixler said this stretch was a gut
check for his team.
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Versailles
freshman Kyle Ahrens is surrounded by a squadren of Jets
Saturday. Ahrens was shut down on offense, scoring just eight points.
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