Boys Basketball: Bulldogs romp over Eagles, Indians

Judging by their first two outings in conference play, the Highland basketball Bulldogs confirmed their status as the favorites in the Mississippi Valley Conference.

First on Tuesday of last week, Highland traveled to Bethalto and grounded the host Civic Memorial Eagles, 69-46. Then last Thursday, the Bulldogs were rude hosts as they routed the visiting Mascoutah Indians, 61-40.

Highland (2-0 MVC) has won three games in a row overall to improve to 4-2. The Bulldogs’ two losses came at the hands of two very worthy opponents, Edwardsville and Carbondale.

Highland hosted Wesclin on Tuesday night and and will host rival Triad on Friday before traveling to Centralia for a very tough road test on Saturday.

The Bulldogs then are off for six days before competing in the perennially tough Mater Dei Christmas Tournament Dec. 26-30.

Highland 61, Mascoutah 40

The Bulldogs came out blazing, knocking down their first six shots, including two 3-pointers, to race out to a 14-4 advantage, with senior guard Austin Elledge accounting for half of the points in the opening spurt.

A short time later, senior guard Brode Portell converted a putback after Highland finally missed its first shot of the game. Senior guard Luke Thies followed by bagging his second 3-pointer, the team’s third, and the Bulldogs had already lit up the scoreboard like a Christmas tree with a 19-4 lead in the first 3 minutes, 40 seconds.

Highland obviously cooled off some, but the Bulldogs hardly looked back and led comfortably throughout. Highland ended up draining 24-of-44 (54.55 percent) field goals. A big reason for the Bulldogs success was sharing the wealth, as evidenced by Highland ringing up 15 assists on its 24 baskets.

“I was very happy with the way we started,” HHS coach Matt Elledge said. “Obviously, we shot the ball very well and I think we made our first five or six shots. Obviously, the boys came out ready to play. Did we sustain that and can you expect that for the entire game? Absolutely not. But I am very happy with the mental approach of the game. Throughout the game, we kept our intensity up for the most part.”

HHS’ lead swelled to 30-12 when Portell canned a 3-pointer 2:25 into the second quarter and spread to 36-20 on Austin Elledge’s 3-ball with 2:17 left in the opening half.

The Bulldogs went cold for a spell and Mascoutah (1-7 overall, 0-1 MVC) ended up chopping the 16-point deficit down to 36-26 with only 1:54 elapsed off the clock in the third stanza.

Highland woke up as Thies dumped in eight third-quarter points to push the lead up to 48-28,

Senior Will Greenwald scored back-to-back buckets in the first 54 seconds of the final frame and the lead ballooned to its overall largest margin at 52-28.

“There in the third quarter, they got a little satisfied and (Mascoutah) cut it to 10, so it was time to bring some new people into the game,” Matt Elledge said. “We have the luxury of having of a pretty good bench. When our bench players come in, there is not a lot let up as far as what we do and how we do things. We were taking harder shots than we needed to and we were not using everybody, and we were putting ourselves in bad positions. Then we got back to spreading the ball around, finding the open man and getting the easy shots. I am very pleased with the way they played. Obviously, there is room for improvement, like taking care of the ball. We had some unforced turnovers.”

Austin Elledge topped all scorers in the game with 18 points while he also dished out a game-leading five assists to go with six rebounds. Thies supplied 14 points, highlighted by going 4-for-5 from behind the arc, three assists and three boards.

The Bulldogs also received nine points, six rebounds and four assists from Portell, eight points and four boards from senior Chris Dickman, eight points from senior Will Greenwald, two points apiece from freshman Sam LaPorta and sophomore Elliott Prott, and three blocks from senior Michael Torre.

Mascoutah was led by Ethan Mayberry’s 17 points and eight rebounds. Jordan Flores added eight points and six boards for the Indians.

Highland 69, Civic Memorial 46

CM was fast off the start and went up 7-0 but the Bulldogs clawed their way back to even at 14-14 by the end of the first quarter. It was all Highland after that, going up 30-22 at halftime before growing the lead to 53-35 after three quarters.

Highland owned the rebounding battle by an eye-popping 32-12 margin. In fact, the Bulldogs grabbed nearly as many offensive boards (11) as the Eagles accumulated overall.

Highland used good ball movement and selfless play in predominantly half-court sets to find the open shot. And the Bulldogs buried the good looks on a regular basis, shooting 53 percent (30-for-57) for the game. Highland recorded 15 assists, which was exactly half of its field goals.

CM (5-2 overall, 2-1 MVC) went 2-for-10 from 3-point territory and 4-for-10 from the charity stripe. Conversely, the Bulldogs hit 7-of-9 foul shots.

“I thought No. 1 CM got a little tired and No. 2 our boys started to figure out their defense a little bit and moved the ball and made some shots,” Matt Elledge said. “We didn’t press, we just played half-court man-to-man but the kids did a real nice job of communicating and did a great job on the boards. So that was a a big plus for us. And our defense played very well. We held them to the 40s which is always a goal of ours.”

Portell scored 17 points to pace Highland, which also got 13 points, a game-high nine rebounds and three assists from Thies, and 12 points and a game-best six assists from Austin Elledge.

“I though Luke, Brode and Austin all played very well and very unselfish,” Matt Elledge said. “We moved the ball very well and shared the ball and got the easy shot. Justin Twyford came in and did a good job. Really, everybody did a nice job and there wasn’t any drop off when the bench came into the game. Everybody did their job and did what we expected them to do. It was a really good outing for us.”

Also for the Bulldogs, seniors Justin Twyford and Torre scored six points apiece, while senior Will Michael added four points, and LaPorta had two points.

CM got eight points apiece from Brett Lane, Geoff Withers and Brandon Hampton. Also for the Eagles, Adam Hill added seven points, David Lane had six points, Caden Clark five and Jaquan Adams four.

This story was originally published December 14, 2015 at 6:51 AM with the headline "Boys Basketball: Bulldogs romp over Eagles, Indians."