MT. ORAB – The boys’ basketball season in Mt. Orab is getting closer and closer to tipping off officially as the Western Brown Broncos held their first scrimmage of the season Wednesday night against the Clermont Northeastern Rockets.
Under the watchful eye of head coach Greg Foster, the Broncos participated in a two-hour contest against the Rockets. By the end of the night, the Broncos had rode a wave of CNE turnovers to a total of 110 points. The final score wasn’t recorded.
Foster noted the Broncos have to force turnovers if they want to have a shot at winning games this season.
“That’s the way we have to play,” Foster said. “We did a lot of bad things, but we did a lot of good things too. That’s why we scrimmage. That’s the kind of defense we want to play. We need to eliminate the turnovers on the offensive end and I think we’ll be alright.”
The turnovers the Broncos forced led to easy shots for the offense to convert, which they did on occasion. However, Foster says the team missed more of those shots than they should have.
“Our defense created a lot of points,” Foster said. “We missed a lot of layups, a lot of easy shots. We should have scored a lot more than what we did, the big guys need to finish around the hoop.”
The Broncos only “lost” one quarter of the game, but they did allow CNE to climb back into the game on a few occasions, something Foster noted the team could not do in the regular season.
“The guards played pretty well for the most part,” Foster said. “We got leads here and there and then we kind of lost focus on what we were doing, so instead of extending the lead we paused or went backwards. Other than that, with it being the first scrimmage of the year, you expect mistakes. You expect to not necessarily play your best, which was the case tonight.”
The team that took the court for the Broncos Wednesday night will be nowhere near the one that hits the court to start the season next month. Foster knows the team is not where it needs to be, but also notes that the squad will play tough this season.
“We’ve got a lot of work still do do,” Foster said. “But they play hard.”
Western Brown still has time to prepare before the games count for real. The team travels to Mason County for their first regular-season match December 1.
