With its offensive struggles, Brandywine was lucky to trail Eau Claire by only two points entering the fourth quarter of Wednesday’s boys high school basketball game.

But the Bobcats good fortune would come to an end in the fourth quarter as the Beavers pulled away and posted a 46-31 non-conference win.

Brandywine, which shot 23-percent (12-of-52) from the field for the game, went 2-for-15 from the field in the final quarter. The Bobcats missed their first nine shots in the fourth quarter and didn’t score from the field until 1:23 remained in the game when Michael Shelton hit a 3-pointer. Eau Claire, which went 5-for-8 from the field and 8-for-11 from the free throw line in the fourth quarter, owned a 40-31 lead after that basket.

“We were just out of it tonight,” said Brandywine coach Nathan Knapp, whose team fell to 1-2. “I don’t know what the problem was. The communication level wasn’t there. We drew stuff up in timeouts and our kids went to the floor and just went blank.”

Eau Claire turnovers helped Brandywine stay in the game as the Beavers, who improved to 2-0, turned the ball over 26 times.

But the Bobcats couldn’t turn the miscues into points as Brandywine had 18 turnovers of its own, along with numerous missed shots.

“We were getting some good looks at times,” Knapp said. “We didn’t do a good job of attacking the seams in the zone. They extended the pressure in the zone into the passing lanes and made us run our offense from about 25-feet out and we just played into their hands all night.

“Eau Claire came to play tonight and we didn’t. It showed in the first series (of the game). We did a great job of blocking out and we didn’t go get the rebound. I think it led to four offensive rebounds for Eau Claire during that trip. That was the start of the game and that was how it pretty much ended.”

Eau Claire finished with a 33-22 rebounding advantage with 6-foot-6 Cory Young pulling down 11 rebounds for the Beavers to go with his 20 points. Young scored eight points in the fourth quarter. Young’s three-point play started a 12-0 Eau Claire run to start the fourth quarter, which extended the Beavers lead to 40-26 lead with 1:32 left in the game.

Pierce Gleason scored 14 points and grabbed five rebounds for Brandywine.

(For more, including a box score, go to www.leaderpub.com.)

 

“Pierced played his heart out,” Knapp said. “He had a lot of steals. Our kids did a lot of good things tonight, but when you get a turnover you can’t give it right back. You shoot yourself in the foot when you do that and we did that all night tonight.”

Knapp tried different lineups throughout the game to try to give his team a spark.

“During the middle of the second quarter I just tried to find something to work and I couldn’t find anything,” Knapp said.

 

EAU CLAIRE 46

DaQuane Alexander 2, Sevrin Dohm 2, Cory Young 20, Antonio Futrell 1, Carston Harner 12, Jacob Grajauskis 7, Austin Carlson 0, Hunter Reed 2

BRANDYWINE 31

Courtlan Gordon 0, Michael Shelton 5, Brock Hartline 1, Brian Kline 3, Pierce Gleason 14, Alex Ulrickson 2, Zachary Schmidt 0, Trent Moskwinski 0, Austin Knapp 2, Andrew Duckett 4

 

Eau Claire 10 14 28 46

Brandywine 6 12 26 31

3-point goals: Eau Claire (none), Brandywine 2 (Shelton, Kline). Total fouls (fouled out): Eau Claire 16 (none), Brandywine 16 (Shelton). Shooting: Eau Claire 18-of-38 for 47-percent, Brandywine 12-of-52 for 23-percent. Rebounding: Eau Claire 33 (Young 11), Brandywine 22 (Knapp 6). Turnovers: Eau Claire 26, Brandywine 18