By JEFF LAMPE
For The Weekly Post
In an otherwise rough week for the Elmwood boys basketball team, senior Andrew Marincic provided a bright spot by topping 1,000 points for his career in last Friday’s 50-38 loss to Illini Bluffs.
“It’s awfully impressive to get to 1,000 points with the fact you played one-third the games as a junior,” Coach Josh Fugitt said after Marincic led Elmwood with 21 points.
Fugitt said the Trojans (12-10) competed much better against Illini Bluffs than in last Tuesday’s 66-45 loss to Peoria Christian.
“Turnovers and offensive rebounds did us in against Peoria Christian, but I liked our physicality and fight against IB,” Fugitt said. “We really got after it in the second half against IB. But we still haven’t put together that complete game.”
Marincic and Victor Lenzi (team-high 16 points vs. PC) battled foul trouble in both losses. Some help in that regard came with the return of guard Zach Howerton, who is expected back in the lineup on Friday at Lewistown.
Farmington
The Farmers (19-6) capped a strong week with a 49-31 home win over Kewanee on Saturday.
“That was a good win. They’re a good team,” Farmington Coach Marty Lozier said. “That’s going to help us quite a bit” in terms of seeding for the postseason.
Seven of 10 Farmers scored vs. Kewanee, led by Ethan Evans with 13 points and Corbin Rutledge with 12.
“As the season is going on, we’re clicking a little better,” Lozier said. “I’m excited how we’re playing, especially defensively. The last five games, teams have averaged under 35 points a game against us.”
Defense was solid on Jan. 25 in a 51-38 win at Lewistown, which keyed on Riley Embry and wound up getting hurt by other Farmington scorers.
Evans had 13, Keauntrey Barnes tallied 12 and Logan Morse scored 10 for
Farmington.
“All our players played really well and shot well and our defense was really good,” Lozier said.
The Farmers were scheduled to be home vs. Orion Tuesday and travel to Sherrard on Thursday.
Brimfield
The Indians packed in another busy week, going 1-2 with losses on Jan. 25 at Illini Bluffs (62-55) and on Jan. 28 at Canton (64-43) before returning home to beat Bushnell-Prairie City (60-51).
The latter was encouraging to Coach Kevin Kreiter for several reasons, including the improved play of post player Caleb Tyre, who scored 18 points.
“We really need that going forward, maybe not 18 every game, but he looked like his old self,” Kreiter said of Tyre, who has been sidelined with injuries.
Levi Moon had 14 points in the win.
Against Canton, Oliver Heinz scored 16 points in the first half and Brimfield stayed within six. But after intermission, Canton came alive on offense and held Heinz scoreless with a box-and-one defense.
“That might have been the best team we’ve played,” Kreiter said.
Brimfield led at halftime against Illini Bluffs before IB started pounding the ball inside to take control.
“Their guards were hitting the 3s which made us extend our defense, which we didn’t want to do,” Kreiter said. “And that left [6-foot-9 sophomore Hank] Alvey open.”
Heinz led the Indians with 14 points.
Brimfield has another busy week at Putnam County on Tuesday, at Henry-Senachwine on Wednesday, home vs. Delavan on Friday and Saturday at West Prairie.
Princeville
The Princes (8-9) beat Wethersfield in a Lincoln Trail Conference tournament opener Friday (48-39), but dropped Saturday’s second-round game to United (62-39) – the second loss to United in a week (the Jan. 25 score was 67-59).
Princeville plays A-Town Friday at 6:30 p.m. in Galva and concludes LTC play on Saturday.
ROWVA-Williamsfield
The Cougars (12-12) went 2-1 last week, falling Saturday to Mercer County (65-39) after topping West Central Friday (51-44) in LTC play. R-W also beat A-Town on Jan. 25, 64-59.
Graham Wight had 29 points vs. A-Town and Carson Malek added 17. Lewis Sams led with 19 against West Central while Wight had 14 in that game.
R-W meets Stark County at 8 on Friday in LTC play at Galva and concludes Saturday.
