Lady Bruins also make it a double celebration against Independence                

By CARSON FANT
For Brentwood Home Page
The Brentwood High School Bruins dominated the second half against the Independence High School Eagles Friday night, turning a six-point halftime lead into a 53-30 district-opening win.

It was the eighth straight victory for the host BHS boys team (14-4, 1-0), which won two tournaments over the Christmas break. The Lady Bruins (15-2, 1-0) also triumphed, 54-48, using an 11-0 second-half run to break away from IHS in their first District 11-AAA game.

In the boys game, the Bruins played stingy defense, holding the Eagles to 21 percent shooting from the field.

“They had a horrible shooting night, partly due to our matchups,” Brentwood Coach Dennis King said.

As the game progressed, so did the Bruins’ defense as they were hotly contesting the smaller lineup of the Eagles.

Independence played good defense of its own early on, holding Brentwood without a field goal for nearly the first four minutes of the game.

 “They just play such sticky, physical defense,” King said. “[IHS Coach Jeremy Moore] does a great job of scouting all of our sets, and they have counters to everything we do.”

The Bruins did find a rhythm in the second quarter, particularly with the inside-outside combination of Cole Harrison and Jack Montague. Asa Duvall added a couple of 3-pointers to help Brentwood take a 19-13 lead into halftime.

The second half was all Brentwood. Baskets by Andy Schumpert, Cody Shelton and a three-point play by Montague gave the Bruins their first double-digit lead of the game with 2:41 left in the third quarter. After an Eagle basket, the Bruins ran off 13 straight points and didn’t look back.

Despite Friday’s lopsided victory, King said he expects a tough game when the two teams meet again later this month.

“I think when we go down there it’s going to be a dogfight,” King said.

Montague, a Yale University recruit, led all scorers with 19 points and also had five assists. Harrison had three blocks for the Bruins.

Lady Bruins break game wide open in second half

The Lady Bruins took an eight-point lead early in the second quarter when Halle Jarnagin hit a baseline jumper off an assist from Paige Hood. After taking a timeout, the Lady Eagles ran off 10 straight points to take their first lead of the game with 1:53 remaining in the first half.

Brentwood got the lead back right before half on a momentum-swinging set of events. Hood stole the ball as Independence was in transition and quickly passed to Millie Tunnel who scored to cut the Lady Eagles’ lead to 24-23.

After another Independence turnover, Brentwood’s Paige Parker scored and was fouled. Her free throw with three seconds left in the half gave the Lady Bruins a boost going into the break.

 “This team plays hard,” Brentwood Coach Ronnie Seigenthaler said. “They play physical, they play hard. They understand when they’re challenged to make stops, they’ve got to make stops.”

The third quarter was closely contested with neither team leading by more than three points. Parker scored a transition basket with five seconds left in the third quarter to give the Lady Bruins a 38-36 lead.

Brentwood played sound offense to open the fourth quarter, finding openings in the Lady Eagles’ zone defense to widen its lead.

 “If you’re going to attack a zone, you’ve got to go inside out,” Seigenthaler said. “You can’t just live at the perimeter. You can’t just keep jamming it in. There needs to be some balance.

 “I thought when we built the eight-point lead in the first half we executed and we did that. And I thought when we lost our lead we got away from that.”

Parker led the Lady Bruins with 21 points. Jarnagin added 13 points, 11 coming in the second half.

Brentwood plays at Hillsboro on Tuesday night in the first of five straight district road games. Tip-off is set for 6 p.m. for the girls game, followed by the boys matchup.