MATTHIAS LEGUIRE / for The Courier VAN BUREN’S Matt Iliff, left, banks in a shot over Liberty-Benton’s Will Poling during Friday’s Blanchard Valley Conference boys basketball game.
By MICHAEL BURWELL
Staff Writer
VAN BUREN — Team records didn’t matter for Van Buren and Liberty-Benton on Friday.
The two teams added another barn burner to their boys basketball rivalry.
Van Buren knocked down 10 of 12 free throws in the final four minutes and its defense forced several key turnovers down the stretch as the Black Knights edged the Eagles 68-64 in a Blanchard Valley Conference game at Van Buren High School.
“I told the guys coming into this game, we really can’t look at their record and think that we’re going to just come in and have an easy win because that’s too good of a program,” Van Buren coach Tyler Niekamp said of the one-win Eagles. “(L-B) Coach (Ben) Gerken’s too good of a coach. They’re going to be ready to play and play hard against us, so we better be ready for a battle and that’s exactly what it was.”
Van Buren, which won its second-straight game against L-B including last year’s Division III district semifinal win, improved to 6-3 overall and 4-0 in the league. The Black Knights, Pandora-Gilboa (4-0) and North Baltimore (3-0) are the last remaining teams unbeaten in BVC play.
L-B, which beat the Black Knights in overtime in its last two regular-season meetings, dropped to 1-6 overall and 1-2 in the BVC. The Eagles, who average 39 points per game, matched their season-high scoring output (64-47 win over Arcadia on Dec. 22).
“We haven’t been playing very well up to this point, but this is the team that I thought we could have, so I’m so proud of our effort,” Gerken said. “Not happy at all of the result, I thought we could have done some things from an execution defensive and offensive standpoint, but our kids battled tonight and that was something we needed.”
L-B senior Austin May scored a game-high 23 points, including 10 in the first quarter, while Van Buren senior Matthew Ayers led the Black Knights with 21 points.
Van Buren’s 29-19 advantage late in the second quarter was the only double-digit lead for either team in a game that featured 16 lead changes.
L-B ended the third quarter with a bang and the lead as Lucas Mattingly, who checked in the game for the first time just seconds earlier, drained a 3-pointer off Conor Greer’s pass with two seconds left to give the Eagles a 46-45 advantage.
The Black Knights, however, used its size advantage in the paint to snatch the lead back.
Matt Iliff, a 6-foot-5 senior, scored a basket in the paint early in the fourth to give the Black Knights a one-point lead. After Greer’s drive for an easy basket, Kade Steveson (6-5 senior) converted a 3-point play on a tough basket in the paint to give Van Buren a 50-48 lead.
Iliff had 17 points, while Steveson had six of his 12 points in the fourth quarter.
“Their post players are a load inside,” Gerken said. “Matthew Iliff is big, Kade Steveson is tall and long and they just hurt us inside in the second half. When we got a lead, they just kept ramming it in the post and that’s what enabled them to build a lead.”
A 6-0 Van Buren run — a bucket and two free throws from Steveson and two Ayers’ free throws — gave the Black Knights a 60-55 lead with three minutes left.
That was the cushion they needed.
After Will Poling’s steal and layup for the Eagles cut their deficit to 60-57 with 2:38 left, Van Buren forced turnovers on the next two L-B possessions. Nic Beitzel stepped in and drew a charge on Poling on a drive to the basket.
Overall, L-B had three turnovers in the final 1:49.
“I really challenged them at the end of that third quarter because they were doing a good job of spreading us out and getting to the rim,” Niekamp said. “So I really challenged our guys to guard the ball, keep them in front and if they do get to the rim, we need to take a charge so that was a huge play by (Beitzel).”
Van Buren made 6 of 8 free throws in the final 1:16 in maintaining a two-possession lead. Poling drained two 3-pointers in the final 11 seconds for L-B, but Van Buren held on for the win.
“I was really happy with the way we hung in there with the way the third quarter ended,” Niekamp said. “We came out and got some stops when we needed them and then we were able to take care of the ball there at the end and hit some free throws, which was big.”
Poling scored 15 of his 17 points in the second half. He had two steals that led to easy layups in a 15-second span midway through the third quarter to tie the game at 36-36, and his stepback 3-pointer two minutes later gave L-B a 41-40 lead, its first since late in the first quarter.
Greer added 13 points and a team-high six rebounds for the Eagles, who shot 44 percent (24 of 54) from the floor and 42 percent (8 of 19) from 3-point range.
Van Buren shot 59 percent (22 of 37) from the floor and 72 percent (21 of 29) from the free-throw line. Overall, eight players scored for the Black Knights.
“I’m glad we had another balanced scoring night,” Niekamp said. “My message to the guys was that’s a great win. I don’t care what their record is, but that was a good team that we just beat. We just got to keep getting better from here.”
LIBERTY-BENTON (1-6, 1-2 BVC)
May 7-6–23, Poling 7-0–17, Greer 6-1–13, Schroeder 2-0–5, Ja. Reindel 1-1–3, Mattingly 1-0–3, Dillon 0-0–0, Kotey 0-0–0. TOTALS: 24-54 8-13–64.
VAN BUREN (6-3, 4-0 BVC)
Ayers 7-5–21, Iliff 7-3–17, Steveson 3-6–12, Kramer 1-3–6, Beitzel 2-1–5, Ohlrich 0-3–3, Warren 1-0–2, Goble 1-0–2. TOTALS: 22-37 21-29–68.
Liberty-Benton 12 11 23 18 — 64
Van Buren 14 15 16 23 — 68
3-Point GOALS: Liberty-Benton 8-19 (May & Poling 3, Schroeder & Mattingly 1); Van Buren 3-9 (Ayers 2, Kramer 1).
rebounds: Liberty-Benton 27 (Greer 6); Van Buren 25 (Goble 6).
turnovers: Liberty-Benton 12, Van Buren 15.
junior varsity: Liberty-Benton, 55-52.
Burwell, 419-427-8407
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