By Baylor Detjens

Tuesday morning, the Bennington boy’s basketball team sleepwalked into the gym for their matchup against Gretna East in the 3rd place game in the Eastern Midlands Conference Tournament. 

The Griffins sprung out to a quick 14-0 lead in the first quarter, led by an early 10 points from Drayke Brown. The Badgers would end the first trailing by 15, but they would cut the Griffins lead down 35-27. 

Early in the 2nd half, the Badgers came out firing, bringing the score to 34-37 Griffins. This would be as close as it would get for BHS as the quarter would end with a 59-39 GEHS lead. 

The final would be an 84-53 victory for Gretna East earning them 3rd place in the EMC. 

After the game, Bennington head coach Luke Olson was not thrilled with the team’s performance. Olson pointed out “resiliency” and “inconsistency” as two points of emphasis to work on after today’s game. 

He highlighted the fact that “we’ve won some games. We’re in an okay spot after seven games. We’ve played six ranked teams, and so I feel good about where we are overall… but we just need to improve at executing those detailed things that win games, and if we do that, we’ll like where we are by the end of the season.”  

One bright spot in Tuesday’s game was junior guard Blaize Jung, who tallied 17 points on 57% from the field. 

Going forward, the Badgers will need more from their only returning starter, as Olson detailed that “every game we play is a tough game, and so we have to come ready to play.” 

The new year definitely starts tough as the Badgers face off against two ranked teams in Platteview and Scottsbluff and a conference foe in Blair in their next three games. The boys will host Platteview on Friday at 7:15.

Photos By Marisa Dawson