By Drew Terhall

DailyAdvocate.com

ARCANUM — The Arcanum Trojans basketball team continued their hot start as they defeated Ansonia at home in their first WOAC on Dec. 8, 64-27.

Arcanum head coach Kevin Brackman said they knew coming in Ansonia would try to give themselves a spark early on. They tried to switch things around defensively to neutralize senior Ethan Reichert.

Once they started to lock in defensively, they started to take over the game.

“We tried to shake up our defense a little bit. Once we got into a groove and we understood our matchups, we tried to play chess a little bit and use that to our advantage,” Brackman said.

For Ansonia, it was their first game this season. They had to delay their start due to the football team reaching the Regional Finals in Division VII.

Head coach Tony Overton said they came in viewing this game as a scrimmage to work out the kinks and to give the team some game experience. They still wanted to win, but it was a learning experience for the team as they shook off the rust.

“Going in to tonight’s game, we as coaches looked at is as a scrimmage. We obviously weren’t looking to get beat by 40. So, we’ll take the beat down and learn from it. We played hard, we always do. We weren’t smart at all. We’ll fix that. A month from now, we’ll be a different team. Tomorrow is a new day,” Overton said.

It was back and forth for the first quarter and a half. Arcanum came out strong, like they did against Greenville last week. But, Ansonia kept strong and fought back to keep it close.

As the second quarter went on, Arcanum started to get turnovers. They were able to get stops and started to get on another hot streak on offense.

Brackman said the coaching staff preaches deflections, steals, loose balls, dives on the floor and charges. The things that don’t show up on a scorebook are the things they want their defense to focus on.

By doing that, they were able to grab momentum and run away with it. The Trojans had a 38-19 lead at halftime. They held Ansonia scoreless in the fourth quarter.

A lot of players stepped up for Arcanum. Sophomore Regan Christ and senior Brady Lock did their part. Christ was knocking down shots while Lock had a break away dunk that got the crowd more involved in the game.

Brackman said it was senior Braylen Etherington who really stepped up for them. His play on the court made it hard for Brackman to take him out.

Etherington was making those little plays that may go unnoticed to most but was giving Arcanum an edge in the game.

“He gave us good minutes and kind of had a quiet weekend last Saturday at Greenville. But really stepped up early. The dive on the floor, tried to take a charge that didn’t get called. The official apologized for, he didn’t see it,” Brackman said.

The Arcanum offense limited their own turnovers. Brackman said the low turnover number is a testament to how unselfish his players are. They always seem to make the right play and don’t care how makes it.

As the Trojans made play after play, they got the crowd more and more involved. The team made it a true home court advantage.

“We talked about that they won’t create the energy for us when we start. We’ve got to create our own energy. For us to come out that way and let them feed off of us, we were just able to channel that and run with it and make plays,” Brackman said.

Christ led Arcanum with 16 points. Etherington had 14 and Lock had 12.

Ansonia did all they could to try and stay in it. Once they started to commit a few turnovers in the second quarter, they couldn’t recover. The mistakes became too much to overcome.

But, the Tigers continued to play hard and gave it their all. It’s a starting point for them.

Senior Matt Barga led the Tigers with 10 points. Reichert had seven points and senior Trevor Hemmerich had six points.

Arcanum will travel to Brookville on Dec. 9 for their next game with tipoff at 7:15 p.m. Ansonia will head to Houston on Dec. 9 with tipoff set for 7:15 p.m.

Contact Daily Advocate sports editor Drew Terhall at [email protected]