Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

TIFFIN – There weren’t going to be many surprises when WAMAC West Division rivals Clear Creek Amana and Benton Community met in their postseason opener on Monday.

The two rivals split a pair of regular season matchups but the winner-take-all rubber match went to the Bobcats.

Benton Community erased a 12-point second-half deficit on its way to a 62-59 win over Clear Creek Amana in a Class 3A, Substate 6 quarterfinal on Monday in Tiffin.

“The third time you play someone we all know each other,” Clubb said. “There are no surprises, we know them, they know us. They just handled it a little better than we did in the second half.”

Senior Eli Patterson scored 15 of his game-high 23 points in the second half, including 10 in the fourth quarter, to lead a late Benton Community rally.

Benton Community trailed 28-21 at the half and 39-27 midway through the third quarter but used a 12-0 run to tie the score at 39-39 and closed the game on a 6-3 run over the final two minutes to advance to the Substate 6 semifinal.

Benton Community (13-9) will travel to top-seeded ADM (20-2) for the Region 6 semifinal on Thursday.

ADM defeated Clarke 97-26 in a quarterfinal on Monday.

Clear Creek Amana closes the season 15-8.

“You can say it, you can try to replicate it and we said it a lot this week this is the third season, you have before Christmas, you have after Christmas and you have the postseason and for a lot of our kids they have never played major minutes in the postseason so it was baptism by fire for them because they hadn’t been there,” Clubb said. “Benton had kids that had been there and when the challenge got high they rose up.”

Clear Creek Amana took control early with an 11-0 run to close the opening quarter.

The Clippers led by seven at the half and went up 39-27 with a 6-0 burst that featured a pair of baskets by junior Myles Howell.

Howell led four Clippers in double figures with 18 points.

Benton Community rallied behind Patterson.

The 6-foot-4 senior forward have five points during the Bobcats’ 12-0 run that tied the score at 39 and scored the first nine Benton Community points of the fourth quarter all on 3-pointers.

“With what he is able to do inside that isn’t something that we thought we would have to take away consistently,” Clubb said. “He got hot and that’s something we didn’t anticipate.”
After going 3-of-11 from 3-point range and committing 13 turnovers in the first half Benton Community had just six turnovers in the second half and made 8-of-13 3-pointers over the final two quarters.

“They started making 3s and it kind of snowballed for them in a good way,” Clubb said. “I felt like the experience of their seniors really showed through. When the moment got big they rose to it.”

Clear Creek Amana still had an opportunity to tie the game late.

Sophomore Carson Meskimen hit a 3-pointer with 17 seconds left that cut the lead to 60-59.

Benton Community twice went 1-of-2 at the free throw line in the final 11.5 seconds to leave the door ajar but Clear Creek Amana had a costly turnover and Meskimen’s 3-pointer at the buzzer rattled out.

“This is our first taste of the postseason for a lot of these guys but this can’t be it, we have to learn and grow,” Clubb said. “We have to learn from it because what happened in that gym tonight we can’t do in practice.”

Beckett Boeset had 12 points and seven rebounds, Meskimen had 11 points and Alex DuBay had a double-double with 10 points and 10 rebounds.

All return next season for the Clippers.

Jack Lange had 14 points and Brooks Mitchell-Birdsell and Kaleb Hayden each had 10 for Benton Community.

Benton Community               5   16  23  18  –  62

Clear Creek Amana              16  12  15  16  –  59

Benton Community (62) – Kaleb Hayden 2-4 5-6 10, Brody Timmerman 0-3 0-0 0, Jack Lange 5-10 1-2 14, Eli Patterson 9-18 1-3 23, Brooks Mitchell-Birdsell 3-4 2-2 10, Carson Pickering 2-7 0-0 5, Totals 62.

Clear Creek Amana (59) – Beckett Boeset 4-12 3-3 12, Kayden Howe 2-6 3-5 8, Carson Meskimen 4-11 0-0 11, Myles Howell 7-15 1-2 18, Texton Bollers 0-1 0-0 0, Alex DuBay 4-5 2-4 10, Totals 21-50 9-14 59.

3-point field goal – BC 11-24 (Hayden 1-2, Timmerman 0-2, Lange 3-4, Patterson 4-7, Mitchell-Birdsell 2-3, Pickering 1-6), CCA 8-19 (Boeset 1-2, Howe 1-3, Meskimen 3-8, Howell 3-6). Rebounds – BC 27 (Patterson 8), CCA 32 (DuBay 10). Turnovers – BC 19, CCA 18. Total fouls – BC 10, CCA 18. Fouled out – CCA (Boeset, DuBay). Technical fouls – None.

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