BETHEL — Led by Alec Richardson’s 15 second half points, Blanchester erased a 16-point halftime deficit and edged Bethel-Tate 52-47 Tuesday night in a Southern Buckeye Conference National Division battle.
Richrdson finished with a game-best 21 points while teammate Dylan Miller added 14.
Tommy Bingamon led Bethel-Tate with 15 points.
Blanchester is 4-2 overall and 3-1 in the National Division. Bethel-Tate, who BHS coach Adam Weber said was the best team his squad has faced this season, is now 4-2 overall and 2-2 in league play.
Bethel-Tate came out “on fire” and made 6 of its first 7 shots behind the arc and led 21-6 at the end of the first quarter.
“I think every game we’ve played this year, we’ve been behind in the first quarter,” said Weber.
The Wildcats had no answers and the Tigers offensive onslaught continued in the second quarter to the tune of a 30-14 halftime score.
“They were shooting the absolute lights out of the ball and we were struggling to get our offense going,” said Weber. “It was like it was going to be a blowout. They were big, they were tall, they were killing us.”
Yet the mood in the lockerroom at the break was surprisingly good, Weber said.
“We talked at halftime how we were going to go completely guard oriented,” said Weber. “Our substituion pattern was going to shrink a bit. We were going to go more high-paced.”
The result was a BHS blitzkreig of “epic” proportions, Weber said. “Once the momentum went our direction, they could never get it back.”
The Wildcats scored the first 14 points of the third to tie the game at 30-30, Weber said. Richardson drained a pair of 3-pointers and had 10 of the 21 points in the third. When the dust had settled at the end of 3, it was Blanchester 37, Bethel-Tate 36.
Bethel-Tate had a huge advantage late in the game because they had committed only 3 fouls while Blanchester had more than 10 fouls. And the Tigers were 6 of 7 at the line in the fourth period, but were unable to overtake the surging Wildcats.
SUMMARY
Dec 15, 2015
@Bethel-Tate High School
Blanchester 52 Bethel-Tate 47
BL 08.08.21.15…..52
BT 21.09.06.11…..47
(52) BLANCHESTER (fg-3fg-ft-tp) Richardson 8-3-2-21 Q. Miller 0-0-3-3 D. Miller 5-1-3-14 Stroud 2-0-0-4 Weiderhold 0-0-0-0 Hopkins 2-0-0-4 Coyle 2-0-0-4 Carroll 0-0-0-0 Lovin 0-0-0-0. TOTALS 20-4-7-52
(47) BETHEL-TATE (fg-3fg-ft-tp) Curless 1-1-0-3 Iding 1-1-2-6 Picklehiemer 3-0-3-9 Weeks 4-2-2-12 Bingamon 6-3-0-15 Stolz 0-0-1-1 Reinert 1-0-0-2 Combs 0-0-0-0 Wallace 0-0-0-0. TOTALS 16-7-8-47
