Semoball

BLOOMFIELD XMAS TOURNAMENT: Big second quarter lifts Bernie boys basketball over East Prairie

East Prairie's Jack Scruggs (3) goes up for a layup against Bernie, in the third-place game of the Bloomfield Christmas Tournament, at Bloomfield High School on Saturday. (Liza King/Standard Democrat)

BLOOMFIELD, Mo. — East Prairie’s first quarter lead was short-lived against Bernie in the third-place game of the Bloomfield Christmas Tournament on Saturday.

After the first period, the Eagles looked to be clicking, leading 16-7 at the end of the quarter.

A tough Mules team did not take that showing well though, as it went on to score 23 points in the second quarter and led 30-26 at halftime; well on their way to a 65-44 victory.

Bernie opened up the quarter, on an 8-0 run that cut the Eagles lead from 16-7 to 16-15, and from that point, the Mules started to gain more confidence.

“Realistically, the first quarter, we didn’t look so hot,” Bernie head coach Brad Botsch said. “I thought we may be in for a long night, but the next three quarters, the kids really outplayed them and really happy with our effort.”

It was a rough evening for most of the East Prairie players, as only one — senior Derez Tipler — scored in double-figures.

Tipler scored 17 points, on 6-of-15 shooting. He was 2-of-8 from 3-point range as well.

Overall, East Prairie shot 5-for-21 from 3-point range — good for 24 percent.

Usually a potent scorer, Brian Merryman — who along with Tipler got named to the All-Tournament team — had an uncharacteristic off-night.

Merryman has averaged 16 points per game in the tournament but got held to just three points on Saturday.

He shot 1-for-11 from the floor, as Bernie forced Merryman to take difficult shots.

“I thought Bernie did a good job of collapsing,” Knight said. “We would get one foot in the paint, and they would collapse before we could get two-feet in the paint. They did a good job of making him take contested shots — and those are shots that he does normally make — even though they were contested. A lot of that credit goes to Bernie.”

It was a tale of two halves for the Eagles.

East Prairie shot 38 percent from the floor in the first half but finished shooting at a 31 percent clip.

It’s a make-or-miss game, which is something that Knight knew that his team not only had to do but also had to try to stop.

“First half, we’re hitting shots and doing a pretty good job of that,” Knight said. “It’s easy to be up when things are going good there. The second quarter was a bad quarter, but we had such a good first quarter that it helped us absorb that a little bit. Coming into halftime, we thought we just had one bad quarter, but they did a really good job of coming out and hitting us in the mouth. Bernie’s a shooting team. We knew coming in; we had to take away that.”

In the first half, Bernie shot 34 percent from the floor, as the Eagles defense looked to be ready for the challenge.

Bernie though, responded well, as it finished with a shooting percentage of 40 percent.

Josh Ellenburg was the high-man for Bernie — finishing with 16 points. Ellenburg shot 6-for-14 from the floor and grabbed nine rebounds as well.

“I thought Josh did play well,” Botsch said. “We got the ball inside to him; he works on post moves every morning, just like the other guys work on their shooting, and he did a good job inside of drawing fouls and also getting in there and finishing. He did a good job on the glass for us too, on the defensive end.”

Taking care of the ball was another thing that Bernie did well — the Mules had just three turnovers on the evening.

Trying to get Bernie to play a different way than how it is prone to playing, is what Knight said was a difficult task to accomplish.

“It’s hard to get them to play out of their style,” Knight said. “When you don’t get them to play out of their style, they’re going to get what they want. They are a great shooting team, well-coached team; they’re a very fundamental team. On the other side, that lead evaporates, and we get down 10-12 points, and it becomes a little bit of a panic mode where we force things, that led to some of our forced turnovers.”

Bernie723181765
East Prairie161011744

BERNIE (65) — Josh Ellenburg 16, Weston Zoll 14, Hunter Slavings 11, Blake Harty 7, Skyler Schwent 6, Andrew Goehagan 6, Landon Zoll 5. FG 22, FT 15-20, F 13. (3-pointers: W. Zoll 2, L. Zoll, Harty, Ellenburg, Slavings. Fouled out: none)

EAST PRAIRIE (44) — Derez Tipler 17, Caleb Patrick 8, Tyler McCurter 6, Jack Scruggs 4, Mason Bryars 4, Brian Merryman 3, Harrison Moore 2. FG 16, FT 7-11, F 16

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