LA CROSSE — The Aquinas High School boys basketball team had to absorb some early punches, so it’s good that the Blugolds were ready for a fight from Central as the teams opened the MVC season at the Mark Sutton Memorial Gymnasium on Friday.
The Blugolds were unbeaten coming in, but the RiverHawks showed no intimidation early by scoring 11 of the first 14 points. Central forced some turnovers, rebounded well and made shots to stagger its city rival before junior Logan Becker called for an end to the whole thing.
Becker helped Aquinas recover from the early onslaught and made four first-half 3-pointers to get the Blugolds going on what became a 59-40 victory.
The offensive push put Aquinas (9-0, 1-0) ahead by halftime and allowed the Blugolds to dictate the rest of the matchup as they won their ninth straight game.
“When he gets it going, it’s special to watch,” Aquinas coach Brad Reinhart said of Becker, who finished with a game-high 19 points and made 5 of 8 attempts from the 3-point line. “We see it in practice all the time where the ball is just going in and going in and going in.
“If he ever has a tough stretch, you know it’s just a matter of a shot or two, and he’ll find a way to get it right.”
Becker’s shooting helped Aquinas withstand significant bench time for starting guard Trey Bahr after he picked up his second foul just 1 minute, 36 seconds into the game. His fourth 3 of the first half gave the Blugolds a 30-18 lead after trailing 11-3 just 10 minutes earlier.
“Early on, I thought we executed and hit some shots,” Central coach Todd Fergot said. “Our defensive execution was solid, and our offense was okay, but we hit shots and that got us going.”
But it didn’t last.
“I thought we had a lot of wasted possessions later in the first half,” Fergot said. “We’re not going to be successful that way.”
Central did make one last run before halftime after Becker’s final 3-pointer.
Senior Frankie Wilk made a pair of free throws and followed it with a turnaround jumper. Derrick Pangier made a 3-pointer, and Ezra Wiese turned an offensive rebound into a hoop to cut the deficit to 30-27 with 1:35 on the clock.
But those were the Riverhawks’ last points of the half and last points until Anthony Jones scored at the rim on an inbounds pass with 12:37 left in the second half. That stopped a 10-point Aquinas run that kept Central scoreless for nearly seven minutes.
By the time Bahr scored three straight baskets, a 16-2 run gave Aquinas a 38-29 lead with 10:58 left.
“We stressed composure,” Becker said of the halftime discussion and how the Blugolds wanted to approach the second half. “We didn’t want the speed of the game to get to us. We wanted to play at our pace and play it the way we wanted to play it.”
Junior Finley Strom added 12 points and Bahr nine points and eight rebounds for Aquinas, which made 10 of 20 second-half shots to pull away. Sophomore Calvin Bahr had eight points and eight rebounds.
Wilk had 11 and Joey Pretasky 10 for the RiverHawks (3-2, 0-1), who shot 28.6 percent from the floor in the game and made 4 of 22 shots after halftime.
