TERRE HAUTE — Columbus North bounced back from an off night shooting 3-pointers in Friday’s game at Columbus East, but that still wasn’t enough to avoid a 60-45 loss Saturday at Terre Haute South
The Bull Dogs hit 5 of 13 3-pointers against the Braves in taking their first Conference Indiana boys basketball loss of the season.
“There is a lot to build on from tonight,” North coach Paul Ferguson said. “We’re disappointed in the result, but there is a lot of things that we can build on.”
Terre Haute South (4-2, 1-0) took a 19-9 lead behind Craig Porter’s 10 points in the first eight minutes, but the Bull Dogs (4-3, 1-1) held him to just one basket in the second period. Porter still managed to end with a game-high 18 points.
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“Porter and (De’Avion) Washington are really good players. We knew that coming in,” Ferguson said. “We had to adjust our defense a little bit to contain those guys, and for much of the game, we did a good job.”
A 5-0 run to start the second quarter cut the Braves lead to 19-14, and North pulled within four points by halftime.
Terre Haute South came out of the locker room and scored 15 consecutive points, before the Bull Dogs responded with a 7-0 run of their own and ended the quarter trailing 48-38.
North pulled within seven points early in the fourth and cranked up the defensive pressure. The Bull Dogs didn’t have any trouble forcing steals, with Trey Vincent getting four of North six steals to go with his seven points, but the Bull Dogs just couldn’t turn those turnovers into points.
“What I told our guys was, ‘We played winning basketball, we just made some losing plays.’” Ferguson said. “We played really well tonight for much of the game. There were just some spurts where we lost our head and threw a really careless turnover and didn’t capitalize off a turnover that we got in a couple moments.”
The Bull Dogs forced 10 Braves turnovers. North also gave up the ball 13 times, which helped Terre Haute South close the game on a 10-2 run. The Braves also outrebounded the Bull Dogs 33-20, grabbing 12 offensive boards.
Blake Barker scored a team-high 12 points for North. Lakeevan Whedon and Jaylen Flemmons each added 10 points.
