BG’s Jabari Conway, middle, pulls down a rebound while teammate Evan Brandt looks on Tuesday night.
J.D. Pooley | Sentinel-Tribune
Bowling Green 6-foot-3 senior forward Evan Brandt hit four three-point shots and scored 17 points in leading the Bobcats to a 61-51 victory over previously undefeated Tiffin Columbian Tuesday.
“We’ve been waiting for that,” BG coach Mason Roth said. “Evan is a guy we’ve been waiting to just break out. He is really good. It’s just a matter of time before we get that consistently.”
Columbian falls to 6-1 while BG gets over the .500 mark for the first time this season by winning their third straight and improving to 4-3.
“This was a big win for our guys and hopefully we will use this to turn the corner,” Roth said.
The Bobcats got four players into double figures.
Senior guard Brock Hastings hit two treys and scored 11, junior guard Jake Amspoker added two triples of his own and scored 10, and 6-8 senior forward Jabari Conway scored 10.
“This is by far the best we have played all season long. Offensively we moved the ball well and got ourselves some real good looks,” Roth said.
They all didn’t fall tonight but it felt like we were executing what we wanted to do tonight. We still missed some good looks on offense, but I thought we were getting quality looks tonight.”
Roth said the Bobcats played well on the defensive side of the floor, too, even though Columbian’s 6-5, 190-pound standout senior guard Logan Beaston hit five triples and was 5-for-6 from the line in scoring a game high 26 points.
In addition, 6-4, 185-pound guard Brayden Roggow scored 20 points. Other than those two, only one other Tornado got on the board — junior guard Isaac Garcia scored five points.
“I thought we played our best basketball game offensively and defensively,” Roth said. “Our defensive effort was great tonight. We played fantastic team defense.
“They’re real hard to guard and do a great job of spreading teams out and making you guard in space. We did a good job of making them earn all their buckets.”
It did not all happen at once — Columbian led 16-13 after the completion of the first quarter and held on for a 29-25 advantage at halftime.
In the third quarter, Brandt hit two triples as the Bobcats took a 40-39 lead heading into the final stanza.
The Bobcats outscored the Tornadoes 21-12 over the final eight minutes as Hastings and junior guard Brayden Freyman hit triples and three BG players combined to go 5-for-5 at the free throw line. The Bobcats finished 8-for-10 from the line.
Freyman finished with seven points, junior guard Ahmir Ruffin scored four, and junior point guard Grant Sonner added two points.
(Postgame interview by Sentinel-Tribune multimedia journalist J.D. Pooley)
