ARCANUM – The Arcanum Trojans dropped a 61-46 non-conference varsity basketball game to the visiting Legacy Christian Academy Knights.
“We battled,” said Arcanum coach, Kevin Brackman. “That first half was everybody’s game. “Legacy’s not 6-1 on accident.”
The Knights took an 18-13 lead after one quarter of play with Matthew McCans knocking down two 3-pointers for 6 first-quarter points and Landon Flatter accounted for 6 points on three baskets.
Arcanum battled back with 16 second-quarter points led by 10 Regan Christ points including two of his five treys while holding the visitors to 11 points sending the teams to the break knotted at 29-29.
“Tonight we had to do things a little differently,” Brackman noted. “We haven’t thrown a 2-3 zone at anybody all year so for our guys to come out and commit to that in the first half we executed it fairly well. We gave up some shots but took their big man out of the picture in the first half – we were able to hold him to 11 on the game.”
Legacy Christian took advantage of its height; 6’8” Jacob Thompson and one of the area’s better guards 6’0” left-handed senior, Parker Burke to grab a 16-11 third-quarter score and lead 45-40 with three periods in the book.
“He (Burke) presented us not with matchup issues,” said Brackman. “We tried to focus on keeping him on the right side of the floor and making him go right. He’s really good at ripping, getting into the lane and in the first half we were able to contain him. Once we had to open up the floor a little bit he was able to work and get downhill but for the most part, we played him pretty well.”
The Knights used the free-throw line to go 10-14 and take the final quarter 14-6 and earn the Saturday night win.
“I told our guys this is the start of a new chapter and we write our own book,” Brackman stated. “This is the start of chapter 2, we have to stay together as a team and we have the guys that can make a little run in January and February and maybe surprise a few people.”
“We are a tough matchup, we’re long, we’re athletic but at the end of the day we have to learn how to close games out,” Coach Brackman added. “We have a great locker room, we have great families, we have great supporting staff, and our program is doing extremely well JV team sets at 7-1. Our program is in a great place. Our varsity record may not show it but we’re in a great place coming into the new year.”
Regan Christ led Arcanum and all scorers with a game-high 20 points.
BOXSCORE:
LEGACY CHRISTIAN – P. Burke 18, B. Schwartzkopf 14, J. Thompson 11, N. Hess 10, J. Graves 5, D. Cancino 3 – TOTALS 13 14-20 7 61
ARCANUM – R. Christ 20, L. Flatter 10, M. McCans 6, B. Lock 5, B. Etherington 2, R. Murray 2 – TOTALS 10 5-9 7 46
3-POINTERS
Legacy Christian 7 (B. Schwartzkopf 3, N. Hess 2, J. Graves 1, P. Burke 1)
Arcanum 7 (R. Christ 5, M. McCans 2)
SCORE by QUARTERS
18-11-16-14 61 Legacy Christian
13-16-11-06 46 Arcanum
