Boys District Basketball Tournament action takes center stage this week.

For Brandywine and Niles, a pair of tough opponents await the Bobcats and Vikings in tonight’s opening round.

Brandywine (13-7) heads to Bridgman (15-5) to take on BCS Athletic Conference West Division foe Bridgman for the third time this season.

The Bobcats have lead going into the fourth quarter of both games, but were unable to hold on for the victory.

Playing smart in the fourth quarter will be a key to advancing according to Brandywine coach Nathan Knapp.

“We need to be a little bit smarter down the stretch with the ball,” he said. “They are a good team and to beat them you have to play hard for 32 minutes. They put a lot of pressure on us and we panicked at their place.

“They put a lot of pressure on us at our place, but we didn’t panick, but we got in a hurry. Hopefully it was a good learning experience.”

The winner advanced to Cassopolis where it will face either the host Rangers or Watervliet.

Tip-off at Bridgman is set for 7 p.m.

Brandywine will be led into the tournament by Niles transfer Hunter Slaughter, who is averaging 11.0 points and 5.0 assists since becoming eligible in January.

A true point guard, Slaughter has been able to help the Bobcats spread out the offense and become a bigger challenge to opponents’ defenses.

“He does some amazing things for us,” Knapp said. “Before teams were able to focus on Austin, but now we are more diverse offensively.”

Besides Knapp, Brandywine is getting scoring from Andrew Duckett, Zach Schmidt and Andrew Boocher, who before Slaughter’s arrival had just 26 points on the season.

He is now averaging 8.6 per per game.

The championship game is scheduled for Friday night at 7 p.m. at Ross Beatty Jr./Sr. High School.

 

Class A

Niles will travel to Portage Northern tonight to face the Huskies in the opening round of the Class A District.

The seventh-ranked Kalamazoo Central Maroon Giants are the clear favorite as they enter the district with a 19-1 record.

Niles has been beaten by everyone in the district field except Mattawan.

Vikings’ coach Todd Pawielski said that winning the title is going to be a tall order.

“Both of the Portage schools are darkhorses,” he said. “Each can beat almost anybody on any given night. Kalamazoo Central is Final Four bound at the very least barring a huge upset.

“Lakeshore will give Kalamazoo Central a great game on Monday and come up just short. They are so talented in every area of the game.”