FORTVILLE — Mt. Vernon had a great start.
State-ranked Westfield had a great finish.
Mt. Vernon’s upset bid of Westfield, No. 13 in the Indiana Basketball Coaches Association poll and No. 6 in the Class 4A Associated Press rankings, fell two quarters short.
After leading by five at halftime and by as much as nine in the first two quarters, Mt. Vernon was outscored 20-9 in the third quarter and 41-27 in the second half in a 67-58 loss to the Shamrocks Tuesday.
“In the first half we were a little more focused on what we wanted to do defensively than we were when we came out in the second half,” Mt. Vernon coach Ben Rhoades said. “Give Westfield credit. They have a good team with experienced players. (Trey) Buchanan and (Alex) Romack really stepped up and put them on their shoulders.”
Buchanan led all scorers with 25 points. Romack had 10. Another Shamrock, Charles Farrell finished with 11 points.
The Shamrocks scored the first seven points of the third quarter and opened the second half on a 14-2 run. Six of the points were on two Buchanan treys. He hit four 3’s, two in each half.
He scored 15 points and hit five treys in last year’s meeting at Westfield, handing the Marauders one of their three losses (87-78) last season.
On Tuesday, Buchanan nearly doubled his scoring average of 13.6 points per game.
Julien Smith led the Marauders with 17 points. He was the only Marauder to score in their nine-point third period.
Senior Eli Bridenthal got Mt. Vernon off to a great start with 15 first-half points, but he did not score in the second half.
In the first two quarters, Bridenthal connected on all four of his 3-point attempts and 5 of 6 from the field overall, but he had just two second-half field goal attempts.
“We didn’t cut as hard in the second half as we did in the first half,” Rhoades said. “We didn’t have as much movement and as much screening for each other and we weren’t getting each other open.
“Early in the game, we did a good job of sharing the ball, setting our man up, cutting hard and finding open guys. In the second half I thought we took a step back from that. And, Westfield is a great team. They’ve got some good experienced guys and play in a tough conference like we do.”
Westfield improved to 7-1 overall. It was the Shamrocks fifth straight win. Their lone loss was in overtime to Zionsville, No. 18 in the IBCA poll.
The Marauders had their three-game winning streak snapped. They are 7-4 overall.
Bridenthal hit the first of his four 3-pointers for the game’s opening points. Westfield tied it on a three-point play from Farrell. The Marauders followed with a 6-0 run and led the rest of the first half and early into the second half.
Westfield scored the first six points of the third quarter to take the lead. It opened with treys from Buchanan and Sam Bishop.
Smith scored Mt. Vernon’s first 11 points of the second half. His bucket to open the fourth quarter got the Marauders within four, 46-42 with 6:59 remaining. Later, frosh Luke Ertel scored on a drive to cut it to 47-44 with 5:31 to go.
Westfield put a stop to the Marauder momentum when sub Will Harvey answered Ertel’s drive with a 3-pointer, his only bucket of the game. It started an 8-0 Westfield run.
Ertel joined Smith and Bridenthal in double figures with 11 points. Adam Hackett scored nine on three 3-point field goals.
Tuesday’s contests was the first of three for the Marauders this week.
They host Hoosier Heritage Conference and Hancock County rival Greenfield-Central on Friday and travel to Whiteland Saturday.
“Every game to them is important,” Rhoades said, responding to the players’ disappointment of Tuesday’s loss. “…I’m not disappointed in our effort. We play hard. We just need to play smarter at times and help each other more at times and I think we’ll be good. It’s good to see that they are disappointed. They’re not mad at each other. It’s good to see disappointment when you’re losing. I think that means they’ll come in (today) focused ready to go.”
Westfield 67, Mt. Vernon 58
Westfield;10;16;20;21;—;67
Mt. Vernon;15;16;9;18;—;58
Westfield (7-1): Armani Middlebrooks 3 1-2 7, Charles Farrell 5 1-1 11, Alex Romack 3 4-6 10, Trey Buchanan 10 1-1 25, Sam Bishop 1 4-4 7, Seth LaRavia 2 0-0 4, Will Harvey 1 0-0 3, Max McComb 0 0-0 0. Totals: 25 11-14 67.
Mt. Vernon (7-4): R’mani Wells 2 0-0 4, Eli Bridenthal 5 1-1 15, Adam Hackett 3 0-0 9, Julien Smith 6 4-4 17, Luke Ertel 5 0-1 11, Tanner Teschendorf 0 0-0 0, Brady Fitzgerald 1 0-0 2, Conner Schank 0 0-0 0. Totals: 22 5-6 58.
3-point goals: Westfield 6 (Buchanan 4, Harvey, Bishop); Mt. Vernon 9 (Bridenthal 4, Hackett 3, Smith, Ertel).
