BEA’s Branson Hauskins goes up for a shot during the first half of BEA’s game against the Luverne Cardinals on Tuesday, Dec. 10.

The Blue Earth Area boys basketball team fell behind early to Luverne when the two teams met on the Bucs’ home floor on Tuesday, Dec. 10, and they never recovered. The result was a 72-62 victory for the Cardinals.

The Cardinals scored the first eight points of the contest and never fell behind. Sully Dahlberg grabbed an offensive rebound to score the Bucs’ first two points of the game.

After Luverne sank two free throws to take a 10-2 lead, BEA’s Branson Hauskins sank one of his three first-half three pointers to help the Maroon and Gold pull within five points of the visitors.

The Bucs cut their deficit to three points twice during the first half. The first time was with 6:14 to play in the first half when Will Bromeland drove in the lane and hit a turn-around jumper to make the score 21-18 in favor of Luverne.

Seconds later Bromeland picked up his second foul of the game and took a seat on the bench.

The Cardinals bumped their advantage up to five points when they converted two free throw attempts, but Gage Barker hit two shots from the charity stripe for the Bucs to trim Luverne’s lead back to three points at 23-20.

That is as close as BEA would come because Luverne pulled away in the closing minutes of the first half and went into the intermission with a 38-26 lead.

BEA outscored Luverne 36-34 in the closing half but it was not enough to overcome the Cardinals’ lead and the visitors went home with a 72-62 victory.

The Bucs made 10 of their 31 two-point attempts (32.3 percent) and 12 of their 39 three-point attempts (30.8 percent). BEA converted six of their seven shots from the charity stripe (85.7) percent.

Luverne was 23-for-44 from inside the arc (52.3 percent) and 3-for-13 from outside the arc (23.1 percent). Luverne attempted 23 free throws and made 17 (73.9 percent).

The Cardinals scored 46 of their points from inside the paint compared to only 20 for the Bucs.

Luverne won the battle on the boards by a 46-35 margin.

BEA had eight steals to nine for Luverne. The Bucs committed 12 turnovers while forcing the Cardinals into 18 turnovers.

Hauskins and Bromeland each had 17 points for BEA. Barker tallied eight points, Caden Juba had seven, Noah Laehn had six, Dahlberg had five and Peter Fletcher finished with two.

Fletcher led the Bucs with eight rebounds followed by Bromeland and Barker, who each had seven.

Other leaders were Barker with six assists, Jacob Grandgenett with four steals and Fletcher with four blocks.

The win improves Luverne’s record to 2-1 while the loss evens BEA’s record at 1-1.

After hosting Jackson County Central on Dec. 12, the Bucs were home again on Dec. 14, to take on the St. James Area Saints. BEA travels to St. Clair on Dec. 17, to take on the Cyclones.

BEA 108,

Windom Area 68

The Blue Earth Area Buccaneers boys basketball team put on a record-setting performance when they defeated the host Windom Area Eagles 108-68 on Friday, Dec. 6.

It was the first game of the year for the Bucs while the Eagles came into the contest with a record of 2-0 after scoring over 100 points in each of their two victories.

The 108 points is the most ever scored by the Buccaneer boys in a basketball game, according to former BEA head coach Gary Holmseth.

“In 1996, the Bucs scored 106 points against Albert Lea,” Holmseth recalled.

The Bucs got off to a good start against the Eagles with junior Will Bromeland scoring on a couple of drives to give BEA an early 4-2 lead. However, Bromeland picked up his second foul less than two minutes into the contest and had to take a spot on the bench for the next five minutes.

The play got a little sloppy for awhile and the Bucs were trailing 10-7 before Caden Juba’s basket off of a baseline drive closed the gap to 10-9.

Windom Area went on to score the next seven points to open up an eight point lead at 17-9 before a pull-up jumper by Gage Barker halted their run and cut the Eagles’ advantage to 17-11 with just over 11 and a half minutes remaining in the first half.

Bromeland returned to the court at the 11 minute mark and made an immediate impact by scoring the Bucs’ next 16 points which allowed BEA to go ahead of Windom Area 27-22.

Three-pointers by Jacob Grandgenett and Branson Hauskins and a runner in the lane by Bromeland extended BEA’s advantage to 35-22 with just under six minutes to play in the opening stanza.

Each team tallied 15 more points before the opening half ended to make the score 50-37 heading into the second half.

Bromeland finished the first half with 29 points while his teammates combined to score 21.

The second half saw the Bucs eclipse their first half point total by eight points with a total of 58 while holding the Eagles to only 31 second-half points to give BEA the 40-point victory.

Bromeland finished the game with 44 points. Also reaching double digits in scoring were Hauskins with 19, Barker with 16 and Sully Dahlberg with 10.

Bromeland and Barker each had 10 rebounds followed by Hauskins with eight.

Barker led the team with seven assists while Grandgenett totaled five.

Grandgenett led the Bucs with three steals while Peter Fletcher contributed to the Bucs’ defense with two blocked shots.

As a team, BEA shot 68.2 percent from inside the arc by sinking 30 of their 44 attempts. They went 16-for-43 from beyond the arc for a 37.2 percent success rate.

Windom Area was successful on 16 of their 47 two-point attempts (34 percent) and made 10 of their 26 three-point attempts (38.5 percent).

The Bucs did not attempt any free throws while the Eagles went to the charity stripe 16 times and made six (37.5 percent).

BEA scored 58 of their points in the paint compared to 32 for Windom Area. The Bucs had a 52-37 rebounding advantage over the Eagles and BEA had 13 steals compared to only eight for Windom Area. When it came to turnovers, the Bucs had 13 while the Eagles had 19.