Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

WEST BRANCH – Heading into the locker room following a five-point second quarter the temptation for West Branch head coach Tom Burger was to focus his halftime adjustments on offense.

Instead, Burger center his halftime speech on defense and the Bears seemed to get the message.

West Branch held Wilton scoreless for more than seven minutes to start the third quarter and allowed just five points in the second half of a 58-18 season-opening win in a River Valley Conference South Division contest.

“We said at halftime we wanted to play with a lot of energy on defense and I think we did that pretty well,” West Branch junior Beau Cornwell said. “Only giving up five points is pretty good.”

Cornwell scored 11 of his game-high 27 points during a 15-0 run to open the third quarter that spanned less than three minutes and turned a 22-13 halftime lead into a 24-point cushion.

West Branch forced 11 Wilton turnovers in the third quarter, held the Beavers to 1-of-7 shooting and didn’t allow a point until Garrett Bohnsack converted a layup with 59 seconds left in the quarter.

“We felt like we had to press them, as a coaching staff we felt like we needed to pick up the pace,” Tom Burger said. “If we weren’t going to be patient in the half-court offense we were hoping that our defense and transition would create some points for us which I think it did.”

West Branch bolted to a 17-2 lead less than six minutes into the game after Cornwell scored 10 straight points in two and a half minutes.

Wilton (0-1) used a 10-3 run over the next nine minutes to hang around and trailed just 22-13 at the half.

We came out and we really played well right away we did some really good things and then we kind of fell asleep and we started jacking things up,” Burger said. “We didn’t score until there was about two minutes to go in the second quarter so it was not a good quarter. We just needed to be patient.”

West Branch didn’t waste any time putting the game away in the third quarter.

Tanner Lukavsky scored off a Wilton turnover and Cornwell scored 11 of the next 13 points as West Branch pushed the lead to 37-13 mostly off transition baskets following turnovers.

Wilton was just 2-of-14 from the field in the second half and shot 23 percent from the field for the game while committing 32 turnovers.

“That’s what we’ve been preaching for three weeks of practice is defense, defense, defense,” Cornwell said. “We knew that was going to lead to easy buckets.”

Cornwell was the only West Branch player in double figures as the Bears shot 36 percent and were 5-of-28 from 3-point range.

Brady Lukavsky finished with eight points for West Branch as eight different Bears scored in the win.

“Usually that’s the case, all week in practice in times we think our offense looks good and at times it doesn’t but sometimes what is really good is the transition stuff,” Burger said. “In a game you probably run that more than you do your half-court offense.”

West Branch              17  5  17  19  –  58    

Wilton                        6    7   2    3   –  18

West Branch (58) – Cade Aspelmeier 0-2 0-0 0, Beau Cornwell 11-26 3-3 27, Ben Kyllingstad 0-2 0-0 0, Brady Lukavsky 3-6 0-2 8, Zach Thompson 2-3 0-0 5, Brett Schiele 2-11 0-0 4, Tanner Lukavsky 2-9 0-0 4, Ben Thompson 3-3 0-0 6, Ted Bridges 0-3 0-0 0, Trey Eagle 1-2 0-0 2, Jack Dragovich 1-2 0-0 2, Team 25-69 3-5 58.

Wilton (15) – Garrett Bohnsack 1-1 0-0 2, Nathaniel Fagner 0-1 0-0 0, Jacob Shepherd 1-2 0-0 2, Ronen Santiago 0-2 0-0 0, Isaac Hunter 0-1 0-0 0, Chase Miller 2-8 1-2 6, Cole Rabedeaux 1-2 3-4 5, Brock Hartley 0-1 0-0 0, Jared Townsend 1-8 1-2 3, Team 6-26 5-8 18.

3-point field goals – WB 5-28 (Aspelmeier 0-1, Cornwell 2-13, B. Lukavsky 2-4, Z. Thompson 1-2, Schiele 0-5, T. Lukavsky 0-1, Bridges 0-1, Eagle 0-1); WIL 1-7 (Shepherd 0-1, Santiago 0-1, Hunter 0-1, Miller 1-1, Townsend 0-3). Rebounds – WB 35 (Cornwell 8); WIL 28 (Miller 7). Turnovers – WB 13, WIL 32. Total fouls – WB 12, WIL 11. Fouled out – None. Technical fouls – None.