By By JEFF FISHER / Niles Daily Star
NILES – A Sunday morning breakfast with the coaches seems to inspire Brandywine's Matt Beaver.
The 6-foot-2 senior guard canned three first quarter 3-pointers to go along with a game high 18 points to lift the Bobcats to a 75-52 road victory over Edwardsburg Tuesday night.
"We told him that he is not playing like Beaver can, we have been hard on him. He came out and did exactly what we asked of him. He was unbelievable" Bobcat head coach Nate Knapp said.
Knapp also stated that Brandywine got frustrated with all of the turnovers against Cassopolis Friday night, and that they decided to try an uptempo game and put the pressure on someone else for once.
"It worked out pretty well," he said.
The Bobcats (6-5 overall, 4-2 LAC), led 21-10 to start the second quarter, but the Eddies chipped into the visitor's lead when Nate Harness drilled back-to-back buckets, followed by a 3-pointer, to close the gap to four points, 24-20.
Brandywine carried a 36-24 lead into halftime.
Beaver led a 7-0 run for the Bobcats to open up a 43-24 advantage in the third quarter and outscored the Eddies, 16-7, in the frame.
Billy McDonald's bucket in the fourth quarter put the Bobcats up for good, 72-44, with minutes remaining in the contest.
After Beaver, Edwardsburg transfer Zak Bollenbacher added 16 points, while Josh Benjamin chipped in nine points.
"Our floor spacing wasn't there and they're pressure was. We just have to take it one game at a time and keep plugging away," Eddies coach Jeff Kozinski said. "Our guys are losing their legs. We are going to do a lot of running Wednesday and conditioning and we have to have a never-give-up attitude."
Edwardsburg (4-8 overall, 1-5 LAC), were led by Harness with 12 points and Lance Koehn with seven points.
The Eddies will be without the services of Jake Roberts and Josh Karamalegos for the rest of the season.
"Two of our captains are now done for the season. I have got a very young team, with seven juniors and one sophomore, so we are pretty young. We will miss them," Kozinski added.
The Bobcats will be at home on Friday to host Berrien Springs, while the Eddies will entertain Cassopolis.
Junior varsity
The Brandywine junior varsity team also defeated the Eddies, 54-44.
Dan Riedenbach led the visitors with 13 points, while Nick Muir led the Eddies with 12 points.