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By GARY BOOKS
On Thanksgiving eve at the Tiger Den, Bluffton literally gobbled up a win in its boys varsity basketball season opener.
Displaying a vicious ball-pressure defense and a disciplined, well-balanced attack, the Tigers carved up Eastbrook 66-42 in launching coach Wayne Barker’s 12th season at the Bluffton helm.
Down 9-2 early, the Tigers yanked the stuffing out of Eastbrook’s offense and pulled to a 10-9 lead after one quarter, then virtually dominated the rest of the way.
“The things we wanted to see the most, we saw,” Barker praised afterwards. “We wanted to play hard and be unselfish.”
The former showed up on defense, where the Tigers hounded Eastbrook into just 8 of 24 field shooting the closing three stanzas.
And the offense bracketed a game-long 24 of 41 shots for 59 percent, with a distinctive 6 of 14 from three-point range.
“I thought we only took two bad shots,” Barker commented, as Bluffton rang up a decisive 24-point second period and placed three players in double figures for the night.
Sophomore Jared Johnson topped the scoring column with 18, freshman Cody Cochran netted 12 and senior Adam Tuttle chipped in with 10. And sixth man Jon Rietdorf was just a nick away from double figures with 9.
“This team can be hard to guard as we have different weapons,” Barker said after the Tigers rolled to a 34-22 lead at the half and 48-32 at the third stop.
“We were careless with the ball at times, but I only have positive things to say for the most part,” the Tiger boss amplified.
It was apparent from the get-go what would be Eastbrook’s offensive strategy — get the ball inside to 6-3, 215-pound senior center Kyle Bragg.
That happened the first time down the floor, Bragg scored, and right away Bluffton looked like it might be in for a long night, especially when 6-4 Tiger frontliner Kevin Ballinger drew an early foul.
“We got better guarding the post as the game wore on,” Barker commented. “We got that quick foul on Ballinger, but after that our post defense improved on.”
Bragg finished with just seven points and more importantly, no rebounds, as Bluffton took away 27 missed shots for the night —10 more than the Panthers.
Once Eastbrook constructed the 9-2 gap at the 4:37 mark, Tuttle’s pair of free throws were the offensive springboard.
Then Ballinger tallied from the inside on an assist from Matt Campbell, Johnson nailed two charity tosses and Rietdorf scored on an out of bounds play and Bluffton took the one-point edge into the second 8 minutes.
Johnson was on fire in round two, drilling four of his five shots, including one three ball, and a pair of free throws for an 11-point quarter.
Bragg gave the Panthers their last lead of the night at 11-10 just 15 seconds into the second period before the Tigers went on an 11-0 tear which took them to 21-11 with 5:20 showing before the long breather.
The Tigers pocketed 9 of their 12 shots the second frame — many of them off some dandy assists — while forcing Eastbrook into six turnovers.
Meanwhile, Bluffton didn’t register a second period turnover until just under three minutes were left to be played.
The Tigers shot six of 10 from the floor in round three, with Johnson and Tuttle each contributing a three as they built the 16-point cushion.
Any comeback hopes Eastbrook had were dashed immediately the last quarter when Cochran opened with a pair of three-bombs which sent Bluffton to its first 20-point margin of the game at 54-32. The 6-2 freshman finished with nine points in the wrapup period with another bucket off Rietdorf’s assist and followup free throw.
Marc Miller, a 6-1 junior, was the only Panther in twin figures with 12 points.
Bluffton was edged in the junior varsity game 29-28. Spencer Graham led the scoring with 8, Mark Bowman and Ron Paxton each had 6, Tyler Holmes 5, Alec Betz 2 and Jarred Carpenter 1.
Bluffton will be back in action tomorrow in a home date against Blackford. The Bruins opened with a 46-31 verdict over Wapahani on Wednesday.
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