The 8-3 St. Mary’s Crusaders made the trip from Medford to challenge head coach Luke Beaman and the Bruin boys basketball team Wednesday evening as the regular season begins to come to a close.
In the first period the Crusaders made a point of taking an early lead forcing the Bruins to scramble from behind from the tip-off to keep up with the St. Mary’s offense establishing an eleven point lead to start the first period.The Bruins managed to cut the lead in half by the end of the first with three Bruin shooters hitting for seven points to end the first trailing 7-16.
As the second period played out the Bruin offense again struggled early in the period as the Crusaders built up a ten point lead midway through the period. But the Bruin offense would put up seventeen points in the period cutting the lead to nine points going into the half time break.
Trailing 24-33 to start the second half, the Bruins would put up ten points in the first half of the third period led by Talan Pryor and Ethan Orman as the Crusaders put up eleven before Pryor and Orman 3 pointers closed the gap to six points as the period came to an end.
The fourth period became a shoot out as five shooters for the Bruins scored in the period, however, even after putting up 19 points in the period, the Crusaders refused to allow the Bruins back in the game, scoring 23 points in the period to insure their 61-71 win.
The Bruin boys will be back in action Friday, taking on the 0-13 Rogue River Chieftains Friday evening with tip off scheduled for 7:00pm.
