Beavers take early lead against Lions, leads to seven point victory
Hosting a Hot Spring County rival and 3A-7 conference opponent, the Glen Rose Beavers were able to defeat the Bismarck Lions Tuesday at the Glen Rose Arena after not being able to practice for a week.
The Beavers took an early lead in the first quarter and never surrendered the lead throughout the game to get the win 43-36 over the Lions. Beavers head coach Devin Jones was happy with the Beavers overall performance against the Lions knowing the team hasn’t been able to practice due to COVID-19 protocols. “Considering we haven’t got to practice in a week, just with COVID stuff, I mean we guarded, we played good defense, I thought we rebounded well,” he said. “They’re [Bismarck] actually a really good offensive rebounding team and I thought we rebounded really well. I don’t think we gave up a lot of second chance points, which is huge, honestly that was big for us, so I was happy about that.”
The Beavers opened scoring with Ahmad Holmes going to the rim on a backdoor after the Beavers won the tipoff to take the early lead 2-0. The Lions came back with one made free throw from Dawson King, but it was the Beavers who would take off on a 10-2 run down
to the 52 second mark of the first quarter. Down 12-3, Bismarck’s Logan Bubulka banked in a 3-pointer to bring the Lions back to within six points, 12-6, of the Beavers with 37 seconds left in the quarter.
In the second, Bubulka started off making one of two free throws to cut the Lions deficit to five points, but the
Beavers were able to go on a 6-2 run with Cohen Carter and Brayden Youngmen both scoring baskets, and Youngmen making two free throws, to put the Beavers up 18-11 with over five minutes left in the first half. King was able to stop the run with a goal at the 4:16 mark. Both teams then went scoreless for the next two and half minutes until
Glen Rose’s Andrew Weatherford made a basket from down low to put the Beavers up 20-11 at halftime.
Starting the third quarter, the Beavers got hot and went up by 15 points, 26-11, after Andrew Fletcher made one basket and Holmes followed with two goals. The Lions
were able to pick up the pace with an 11- 1 run down to the 51 second mark to trail by five, 27- 22. In the last 30 seconds though, Holmes was able to score once more to give the Beavers a seven point 29- 22 lead heading into the final quarter.
In the final quarter of play, the Lions cut the Beavers lead to six points twice with the second time com
ing at the 6: 01 mark. The Beavers then gained momentum with a seven point run to take a 13 point lead over the Lions with just over three minutes remaining. The Lions made a small comeback in the next minute when Bubulka nailed two 3- pointers to bring the Lions back to within single digits. The comeback was shutdown as Youngmen and Ethan Taylor each made two free throws and extended the Beavers’ lead to 11 points with over a minute remaining. In the final minute, the Lions scored twice while the Beavers scored once to end the game with the Beavers in the lead 4336.
For the game, Glen Rose’s Youngmen led the Beavers in scoring with 14 points. Holmes followed with nine points. For the Li
ons, Bubulka led in scoring with 13 points while King scored 11 points for the Lions.
The two squads will rematch February 5 at Holt Gymnasium in Bismarck. This Friday though the Lions return home to face Prescott while the Beavers go on the road to another close- county rival Haskell Harmony Grove. Jones said that the Beavers will have to focus, understand and execute the game plan in order to win against Harmony Grove. “Harmony Grove’s been playing really well,” he said. “They do a lot of things good, defensively with the zone they run, offensively just everything they throw at you with different sets. We’ve definitely got to have two good days of practice going into it.”