LA CROSSE — The Central High School boys basketball team showed up to the Reinhart Athletic Complex on Friday ready to play defense and to move the ball patiently in the effort to find good shots.
First place in the MVC was on the line, and the RiverHawks were eager to ride the wave of success they enjoyed while winning their three previous games.
What they met was an Aquinas team that was ready to defend, too. One that was about to make their lives miserable for 36 minutes.
While both the RiverHawks and Blugolds struggled to establish offensive flow, Aquinas senior Vincent Bahr gave his team enough to emerge with a hard-fought 40-31 victory in front of a large and very loud crowd.
Bahr made three 3-pointers early in the second half after the teams combined for 23 first-half points as the Blugolds (17-2, 7-2) maintained sole possession of the MVC lead.
“That was a battle all the way through,” Bahr said. “That’s exactly what we anticipated — a very defensive game.
“There wasn’t going to be a lot of scoring, and we were fine with that.”
Bahr connected from the 3-point line three times in the first 4 minutes, 47 seconds of the second half. The final one was set up by a pass from junior teammate Logan Becker, and it gave the Blugolds a 19-15 lead.
The shots were instrumental because Aquinas held Central without a field goal until Anthony Jones hit a little fadeaway in the lane with 9:31 left in the game.
Trey Bahr and Calvin Bahr later combined to score five points during a stretch of 47 seconds to push the lead to what seemed like an insurmountable 30-21 with 4:12 to go in a half that flew by.
Both coaches acknowledged the impact of Vincent Bahr’s three baskets early in the second half.
Central’s Todd Fergot said they gave Aquinas some important momentum, and Aquinas’ Brad Reinhart said they were set up with solid offense.
“He was the beneficiary of a change we made in the second half,” Reinhart said. “In the first half, we got to the backboard, we got to the rim kind of anytime we wanted to, but we were trying to finish through traffic and over guys instead of getting on two feet and trying to find the open kid.
“All three of Vinnie’s (baskets) came off of good offensive reversal and attack of the lane and somebody finding the open guy. His kid got caught helping, and he is going to knock down open shots.”
The nine-point burst gave Vincent Bahr 10 points for the game, and he added seven rebounds to his stat line. Becker scored a team-high 13, and Trey Bahr added 11 points and nine rebounds as the Blugolds swept the RiverHawks (10-6, 5-3) for the first time since the 2010-2011 season.
Fergot said Central got the kind of game it wanted, but having one player make shots — sophomore Anthony Jones made six of the team’s 11 field goals and scored a game-high 16 points — wasn’t enough.
“You can’t win a game shooting 22 percent,” he said after his team made 11 of 50 attempts. “I thought both teams played really good defense.
“I thought we didn’t take advantage of some opportunities we had in the first half with some open shots that just didn’t go. Then we missed some free throws in the second half. We were down 10 and got it back to five. I liked a lot, but I didn’t like our rebounding, and we didn’t hit shots that we have been knocking down.”
The Blugolds own a half-game lead on second-place Holmen after winning their second straight game and for the sixth time in seven. The RiverHawks are one game behind the Vikings and in third place.
