Winless at home coming into Friday night, Belton remained that way as it fell 82-65 to a hungry, hot-shooting College Station A&M Consolidated squad in its home finale.
“I feel we bring out the best shooting in everybody,” said first-year coach John Osborn, whose Tigers dropped their 39th consecutive District 13-5A game.
“It’s hard to have momentum whenever a team comes out and shoots the way they shot in the second half. We hit a bucket and they matched it with a 3-pointer.”
Belton fell to 9-21 overall and 0-11 in district play, with Tuesday’s season finale at Temple remaining.
After Belton pulled to within 24-23 midway through the second quarter, Consolidated (20-10, 7-5) went on a 15-3 run to thwart any momentum.
Nick Shelburne scored right after half to pull Belton within 39-30, but consecutive 3-pointers from Xavier Workman and Terrence Bowser pushed the lead to 13. Belton never got closer than 10 the rest of the game.
“I told the guys, ‘Offensively, we’re doing fine, but defensively we’re just not doing it,’” said Consol coach Rusty Segler, whose squad was coming off a triple-overtime loss at Harker Heights.
“We’re known for our defense. If we don’t do it, that’s not good.”
Eric Braeuer led Belton with 17 points, Trey Lippincott had 16 and Shelburne added 10.
Despite the loss, Osborn said his seven seniors will be rememberred for turning the Tigers’ program in the right direction.
“I told them we’re going to get this program turned around,” Osborn said. “This program will get turned around where we’re winning 20 ballgames a year and only losing 10.
“We’re going to get it where it flops like that and I will bring up this senior group every year, let them know that they’re the ones who turned it around. With their enthusiasm and the way they play, I’m going to miss every one of them.”
The seven seniors -Lippincott, Shelburne, Trevor Ligon, Bobby Fajkus, Derrick Sanford, Giovanni Dunn and Jordan Fisher - have had three coaches during their four-year careers and have had to adapt to different systems each time.
“Recordwise you could probably say it’s bad,” Osborn said. “But for the kids and what we’ve accomplished as a group in getting better as a team, I think it’s been a pretty good year.
“I think the guys and the people in the crowd have really seen more out of these kids as far as their work ethic and things like that than they’ve seen in a long time. These kids are actually going to propel our program to what it needs to be in the future.”
Added Segler: “John had these kids playing really well. He has them playing hard. It’s his first year. They’re going to be fine.”
Next for Belton is a rematch with rival Temple (9-20, 1-10) at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday at Wildcat Gym. The Wildcats edged the Tigers 60-58 in the first game.
“Coach (Bruce) Etheridge and I have already talked about it and we know our game is going to be another tough game, hopefully right down to the wire and show why that rivalry should be good,” Osborn said.
“I think both teams will get up. I just hope this time we don’t make some of those mistakes we made in the end of the last game."
cmeister@temple-telegram.com
