BRADFORD – The Troy Christian Eagles defeated the home-standing Bradford Railroaders 65-43 in Saturday night non-conference action.
“What it comes down to – we played a pretty solid game tonight and we just ran into a very good team that got very hot,” said Bradford coach, Alex Swabb. “They hit the open shots when they were there.”
The Roaders came into the night following a Friday night conference loss to state-ranked and undefeated Preble Shawnee to take on state-ranked Troy Christian.
“I’m nothing but proud of the way we played this game tonight,” Swabb stated. “This is the toughest weekend we’re going to have the entire season. We run into a top 10 team in the state in Division III and you back-to-back it with a top 10 team in the state in Division IV – it’s not easy.”
The Eagles took the opening quarter 12-10 with Owen Canan accounting for six Bradford first-period points including a 3-pointer and 3-3 at the free throw line.
Bradford battled back taking a 22-21 lead with 3:27 on the second quarter board before the Eagles knotted the score at 24-24 at 1:04 and closed out the opening period with five unanswered points to take a 29-24 lead to the break. Dalton Branson led Bradford with six second-quarter points including his first of two triples on the night.
Troy Christian put the game away in the third outscoring Bradford 19-8 with Parker Penrod canning three of his five treys on the day giving the visitors a 48-32 advantage win one quarter to play.
The Eagles were six better in the fourth taking the period 17-11 giving Troy Christian a 22-point win.
“The way came out and brought the energy to start that game, maybe we gassed out a little early in the third and maybe that is because of how much energy we had to exude last night,” Coach Swabb said. “When you have the short rosters we have all you can ask is the kid to give everything they have and they did that tonight and I couldn’t be more proud of them for it.”
“Only positive things come from here,” added Swabb. “We play every game the rest of the year the way we played tonight with our effort and our intensity I’d be very proud of this season.”
BOXSCORE:
TROY CHRISTIAN – P. Penrod 20, C. Brusman 15, E. Grise 11, F. Rupnik 9, M. Barnishin 4, B. Hockwalt 2, R. Taylor 2, Taylor 2 – TOTALS 17 4-12 9 65
BRADFORD – O. Canan 14, H. Hill 10, D. Branson 9, L. Wills 7, Z. Harleman 3 – TOTALS 12 10-12 3 43
3-POINTERS
Troy Christian 9 (P. Penrod 5, E. Grise 3, C. Brusman 1)
Bradford 3 (D. Branson 2, O. Canan 1)
SCORE by QUARTERS
12-17-19-17 65 Troy Christian
10-14-08-11 43 Bradford
