In the first two district games, Belton did just that, allowing 48 points to rival Temple, then holding high-scoring Harker Heights to 42 in a surprising victory last week.
Since then, Belton’s defense has crumbled, allowing 62 points to Killeen Shoemaker and following that up Tuesday night with another poor showing in a 70-59 loss to previously league-winless College Station A&M Consolidated at Tiger Gym.
“The difference between games like Harker Heights and even Temple - our defensive effort was really good in those games,” said Belton coach John Osborn, whose Tigers fell to 7-15 overall and 1-3 in 12-5A. “These last two we have really fallen off in our defensive effort. We’ve given up a lot of offensive rebounds and we’ve given up a lot of uncontested shots. Those are the two things we talk about every single day and we’re not doing it well right now.”
With the game tied at 21 in the second quarter, Consol (6-15, 1-3) scored on six straight possessions and went on a 16-0 run.
Reserve Jared Robinson drilled two straight 3-pointers, Jose Garcia (game-high 21 points) had a basket and a 3, reserve Alex Caruso hit two free throws and Garcia finished the run with a 3 for a 37-21 lead.
“My bench and Jared hitting those 3s was tremendous,” said Consol coach Rusty Segler, whose team went 10-of-17 from 3-point range and 22-of-46 from the field to offset 16-of-36 shooting from the free throw line. “I hadn’t seen that in a while and having our starters see our bench do it will help us in the long run. That was huge.”
Leading 38-26 to start the second half, Consol failed to score on its first 10 possessions and Belton eventually rallied.
Eric Braeuer (team-high 20 points) hit a free throw and then back-to-back 3s, and Sean Voss’ lay-in at the buzzer pulled Belton to within 46-42.
Consol never let the margin get any closer as Justin Campbell scored inside and Garcia had a steal and layup for a 50-43 lead. Belton got within 55-49 before Braeuer fouled out with 3:59 remaining as Consol pulled away.
“We missed some of our defensive assignments and left some of those guys open,” Osborn said. “It seemed every time we started chipping away and gave ourselves a chance to get back into it, they’d step up and hit another shot and deflate us a bit.”
Aside from the defensive problems, Osborn pointed to his team’s inability to get to the free throw line in the first half. Belton was in the bonus with 3:21 remaining in the first quarter but attemped just three free throws the rest of the half. For the game, Belton shot a dismal 9-of-26 from the free throw line, which thwarted any comeback bid.
Belton sophomore David Ash finished with 15 points and 11 rebounds.
Belton hopes to find its defensive intensity soon as the Tigers play at league unbeaten and No. 10-ranked Bryan at 7:30 Friday.
“I was expecting a little flatness against Shoemaker coming off a big game vs. Harker Heights, but I really wasn’t expecting us to be flat tonight,” Osborn said. “Now we have to go to Bryan, which is not a good place to be flat, but we’ve just got to keep plugging on and figure out how we’re going to pick up our defensive intensity each game."
cmeister@temple-telegram.com
