BELLVILLE — The Bellville High School boys basketball team faced off against Royal High School where the Brahmas fought hard all game to send the match into overtime on a buzzer beater, which led to dominating the overtime period for a 72-60 win at Brahmas Gym February 10. “I felt coming in that I just liked our matchup,” said Bellville head boys basketball coach Mason Loiodice.
“I love our big boy and I love our ability to space out and our top two guards, Deacon (Bauerschlag) and Brandon (Ward), are really great off the dribble, so I felt really confident with this matchup and our ability to play disciplined defense. We got in trouble a little bit in the first half with some of our key guys getting in foul trouble and we just had to rally. When our subs came in, I had two sophomores play a lot tonight. To come down the stretch and for Deacon to play with four fouls, Brandon play with four fouls, DJ (Sanders) to play with three fouls for two whole quarters all the way into overtime, just shows how disciplined we can be. Our senior leadership. Ben Schaff coming in and just leading our defense. I just had the feeling when we made that shot, we had the crowd behind us, overtime was gonna be good. We were just able to stay disciplined and finish them off at the free throw line. Super proud of them.”
Brahmas senior guard Brandon Ward logged 33 points and hit a game-tying three in the final seconds of regulation to send the game into overtime. “Just gonna shout out my team,” Ward said. “Just got to play together, you know, we need everybody on the team.”
Bellville had a 13-12 lead af- ter the first quarter on a bunch of baskets, mostly threes, from Ward and Bauerschlag. Royal then started to pull away in the second quarter with a 22-15 lead at the four and a half minute mark due to layups and free throws. The Brahmas would climb back with a handful of free throws from Ward to go along with a steal and fast-break layup with 30 seconds to go to take a 27-25 lead at halftime.
Bellville stretched their lead to 33-27 in the third quarter on a short basket in the middle of the paint at the 6:30 mark from junior shooting guard Hunter Kunkel. Royal then went on a 12-0 run with three three-pointers, a free throw, and a finger roll off the glass to surge ahead 39-33. As soon as the Brahmas creeped back in it, Royal continued to hit shots, especially free throws, to take a 46-39 advantage at the end of the third quarter.
The Falcons continued their hot shooting in the fourth quarter to maintain their small cushion until Ward hit a big three for Bellville in the corner at the one minute mark to cut the deficit to one at 57-56. Royal senior guard Antonio Page went on to hit two free throws with 47 seconds to play to put the score at 59-56, then Ward’s dagger three from the wing at the 10 second mark tied it at 59. Royal missed a last second three-pointer to result in overtime.
Brahmas center DJ Sanders made an and one basket on a dish from Bauerschlag to start overtime and hit the free throw to take a 62-59 lead. Sanders went on to hit two more free throws and Ward hit six more at the charity stripe to clinch a 72-60 victory.
