BENTON — Benton High School started a new wining streak Tuesday night.
After losing at Massac County on Friday, the Rangers responded with a balanced attack, resulting in a 64-53 non-conference victory at home against a feisty Eldorado ball club.
Benton led 18-17 at the end of the first quarter and trailed by as many as five points in the second quarter. The Rangers took a 36-28 into the lockers and then dominated the second half.
Benton went on a 10-2 run to start the third quarter, getting a pair of treys from Tim Willis and Brendan Ritchason added six points in the quarter as the Rangers swelled their advantage to 52-34 with 2 1/2 minutes left in the third quarter.
"In the third quarter, I thought we came out and stretched it out and kind of put them away," said coach Ron Winemiller.
"We went back and fourth and stayed about 12 and 14 the rest of the game and never could quite put them away."
Eldorado scored the final three points of the third quarter and the first five points in the final frame to pulled within 10, 52-42, at the 6:15 mark. The Eagles never got closer than nine points the rest of the way, committing six turnovers in the second half, including five in that pivotal third quarter.
Derek Oxford and Ritchason shared high point man honors for Benton with 14 points each and Kruz Hayes added 13. Benton was 10-of-19 from the charity stripe.
Eldorado's 6-5 junior center Ethan Partridge led all scorers with 21 points.
While the victory elevated Benton to 14-2, there are still some issues to work on before hosting the Benton Invitational next week.
"The frustrating thing for me is when we are forcing them into wild and crazy shots, we've got to rebound the miss. It seems like we give up a lot of easy rebounds that lead to easy points. The result of that is a little disheartening, but I told our guys, this is a good team. They're 11-5 and beat some good people."
However, Winemiller was pleased with the overall team effort.
"I thought our guys played hard tonight and with a lot of energy. Some times on a Tuesday in a non-conference game that's really hard but I thought we played hard."
Benton will travel to Murphysboro on Friday before hosting the BIT on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday of next week.
