Prep basketball: Badin comes out hot, continues mastery of Cougars

The improvement continues for Badin High School’s boys basketball team. So does the domination of the Edgewood Cougars.

Feeling strong after winning the Clinton-Massie Holiday Tournament championship last week, the Rams returned home Wednesday night and thrashed Edgewood 78-44 at Mulcahey Gym, extending their winning streak in the Butler County rivalry series to nine.

“Being 6-2 at this point and knowing those other two games were close enough that we could’ve had them … I like how we’ve progressed from the first game until now,” Badin coach Gerry Weisgerber said. “Now we’ve got to step into some big games in the league. Our next couple games are huge.”

The Rams will host Purcell Marian on Friday and travel to unbeaten McNicholas next Friday in Greater Catholic League Coed Division play. In between, there’s a nonleague trip to Bellbrook on Wednesday.

“You’ve got to take care of your home floor in the league, then what you do on the road determines whether you’re going to win the league or not,” Weisgerber said. “We’ve had some games where we’ve been up and down, so hopefully we’re learning that you’ve got to play hard the whole time. Tonight, I thought we did it the entire 32 minutes. No matter who was on the floor, we were getting after it, especially on the defensive end.”

Badin never trailed against Edgewood and roared to a 28-15 lead at the first stop. The hosts got six 3-pointers from six different players in that period.

Caleb Meyer scored 15 points, while Jakob Tipton had 14 points and seven rebounds. Spencer Giesting added 11 points and eight boards,and Daunte DeCello chipped in 8 points, four assists and three steals.

“We always prize league games more, but at the same time, a win’s a win,” Tipton said. “We needed to come out and push hard and make sure we matched their physicality. We wish we would’ve been 8-0, but we’ll take 6-2 right now.”

The 6-foot-6 senior had one of those first-quarter treys, his second of the season.

“I felt like my shot was good. We just kept looking for each other, and the shots just kept falling down,” Tipton said. “We like to work inside out, and the outside is generally open.”

The Rams finished with eight 3-pointers and shot 44.4 percent from beyond the arc. They haven’t lost to Edgewood since Dec. 27, 2008.

The last time Badin scored more than 78 points was in an 82-53 win at Northwest on Dec. 1, 2007. The Rams defeated Purcell 78-65 on Jan. 25, 2008, and Northwest 78-48 on Dec. 9, 2008.

“If we run our offense, we’re going to get open shots, whether it be inside or outside. We’ve just got to knock ’em down,” Weisgerber said. “You could see the confidence tonight. They weren’t trying to guide the ball. They were just shooting it.”

Cougars coach John Thomas admitted he wasn’t expecting the early 3-point barrage, though Edgewood did allow Ross to convert 13 treys last Friday.

“I would say, yeah, we’ve got to do a better job of defending the 3-ball, but we’ve got to do a better job defensively. Period,” Thomas said. “We knew Badin would come after us, and we knew they would run their stuff real well. Did we plan on them knocking down those 3s? No, but we weren’t getting through screens to get to their shooters, and they nice looks at the basket and made shots.

“I think we just got an old-fashioned whupping tonight. We got beat in every phase of the game. Their energy was much greater than ours all night. We gave some energy at times, but it was kind of in vain.”

Garrett Gabbard (12) and Trent Allen (10) topped the scoring for the Cougars (3-5), who more then doubled the Rams in turnovers (17-7).

Edgewood didn’t have a memorable two-game stretch against Butler County’s Rams in the last week. Ross rallied from an 18-point deficit to beat the Cougars in overtime.

“Obviously we’re not playing very well right now, but this is definitely not the end of the season,” Thomas said. “We’ve got plenty of basketball to play, and we can get this fixed.”

EHS will be at home against Milford on Friday.

Edgewood 15-8-8-13—44

Badin 28-14-19-17—78

EDGEWOOD (3-5): Tyrevis Hill 1 0 2, Trent Allen 3 3 10, Austin Scott 2 0 4, Ethan McCarty 1 0 2, Garrett Gabbard 5 1 12, Gabe Allen 1 0 2, Jake Paulsen 2 2 6, Isaiah Gambrell 2 0 4, Evan Brown 1 0 2. Totals: 18-6-44

BADIN (6-2): Jakob Tipton 6 1 14, Daunte DeCello 0 8 8, Kyle Young 2 0 5, Sam Mathews 2 0 5, Caleb Meyer 7 0 15, Joseph Walsh 1 2 4, Seth Hargis 2 0 5, Nathan Hegemann 1 0 3, Jordan Flaig 0 2 2, John Berg 0 2 2, Zach Switzer 2 0 4, Spencer Giesting 4 1 11. Totals: 27-16-78

3-pointers: E 2 (T. Allen, Gabbard), B 8 (Giesting 2, Tipton, Hargis, Hegemann, Young, Mathews, Meyer)

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