By Michael Marts, The Report
TRENTON — The Edgewood Cougars hosted the Bellbrook Golden Eagles in a Friday night Southwestern Buckeye League showdown.
The Cougars took home a 48-40 win, with senior guard Jaylen Barry leading the team in scoring with 15 points.
“It was pretty good — knowing we lost to them last time and we should’ve beat them,” Barry said. “We came in with a gameplan to beat them.”
Bellbrook came into Friday’s game averaging 62.3 points per game this year, Edgewood coach Jason Osterman was pleased with his Cougars’ defense.
“We wanted to take away their 3-point shooters,” Osterman said. “They’re a really good 3-point shooting team, so we wanted to play a little higher in the passing lanes and force them to try to get to the rim — which is not one of their strengths.”
The Cougars’ offense came out flat against the Eagles, as Bellbrook jumped to an early 9-2 lead. Edgewood ended the quarter down 11-7 after an Eddie Thompson 3-point field goal.
Bellbrook led for all of the first half and was scoring at will on the Cougars until Edgewood switched into a 1-2-2 press and forced the Eagles to call a timeout with 1:41 left. The Eagles led the Cougars 20-18, and senior guard Connor Ballantyne led Edgewod with 6 points at the break.
“We just need to pick it up a little bit offensively — pick it up in transition,” Osterman said. “Defensively, we were pretty happy and were just not knocking down shots, and I don’t think we are working hard enough to get those shots.”
Coming out of the break, Edgewood attacked the Bellbrook defense, which averages the SWBL Southwestern Division high 58.4 points per game. Barry came out firing with 10 points, and his first made 3 of the season.
“They really started to press us in the second half, which gave us a hard time,” Barry said. “We managed to take care of the ball down the stretch and pull away late.”
Osterman was happy to see his team win back-to-back games.
“To win two in a row — we haven’t done that this year — 2-0 on the week,” he said. “We’ve won the week, which is a good feeling.”
The win moves the Cougars’ record to 4-9 overall and 2-3 in the SWBL. Barry believes the win can bring momentum moving forward.
“It was pretty big — we needed to get this win to especially to climb the ranks in the SWBL to take that conference championship,” Barry said.
Edgewood will travel next to Hamilton on Saturday at the Hamilton Athletic Center and is slated for a 7:30 p.m. tipoff.
Michael Marts is a student at Edgewood and is the Cougars’ beat writer for The Report. To become a beat writer for The Report, email [email protected].
