Hardwood Heroes
Belpre Eagles soar past Eastern in commanding victory
< < Back toBELPRE, Ohio (WOUB) The Belpre Golden Eagles (9-6) hosted the Eastern Eagles (3-14) Wednesday in a TVC Hocking conference battle. Eastern is coming off a 12-point loss against South Gallia. Belpre comes into the game after losing by five against Federal Hocking. Currently, the golden eagles sit with Federal Hocking on the top of the TVC and look to win the title. Belpre built up their resume with a dominant conference win against Eastern with a score of 65-39.
In the first quarter, both teams were eager to pull this win out. Junior Tyler Hill started off hot with six first quarter points for Eastern; whereas, the center, Junior Bass for Belpre, matched Hill with six of his own. Both Bass and Hill led their teams in scoring respectively in the first quarter of play.
At the start of the second quarter, Belpre Senior Derek Liston decided to take matters into his own hands. Liston was slinging it from the arch knocking down three three-pointers in the second with one mid-range jumper to boot. Bass didn’t stop his reign of scoring either, he dropped another six to match his first quarter of play. Tyler Hill for Eastern couldn’t keep up only having two points but Sophomore Colton Llyod and Junior Brady Rockhold had four points each. Eastern still remained competitive though down by just 13 at half.
Down 13 at Belpre, Eastern had to choose between fight or flight. With a messy offense, careless ball handling, and a fearless Belpre defense, the Eagles chose flight. Belpre’s agility on both ends of the court made it tough on Eastern to get any buckets. In fact, the Golden Eagles kept Eastern to just nine. Junior Bass continued to dominate the floor by scoring five points in the third. Junior Chris Copen for Belpre led the team in third with eight points of his own. At this point, all hope for Eastern seemed to dissipate.
In the fourth quarter, Belpre activated the cruise control and only scored eight points. They still continued their dominance on the defensive end though, only allowing seven points to come from Eastern. Derrick Liston had an elite performance for Belpre scoring 22 points alongside four triples. As for the Eagles, Tyler Hill led the dismal offense with 10 points. Belpre will host Southern at 7:15 on Friday and Eastern will travel to Federal Hocking on Friday at 7:30.