HIGH FLYIN' ACTION...was on the court in the opening weekend of the 2008-09 basketball season as shown by Daniell Phillips of Bradford.

By Bob Moore
On the boys side the season began with all the front runners winning their conference openers and it made our boys preview an accurate document through week one! The game of the week turned into an overtime thriller as Bethel squeaked out a week one victory on the road at Twin Valley South.

Bethel’s Scott Masin led all scorers with 23 and was a beast for the Bees in the season opener. South was led by Ryan Innis with 22 and both Masin and Innis had dunks that impressed the early season fans in West Alexandria. South will face Ansonia on the road this week as Bethel will host Tri-County North in their home opener.

Speaking of Tri-County North, the Panthers from Lewisburg gave the young Covington Buccs all they could handle on Friday. The Bucc sophomores made early season impacts as Eric Beckstedt led the Buccs in scoring and fellow Sophs Josh Boehringer and Jake Bitner made some big free throws down the stretch that were key for their victories over TCN and Shelby County League member Fairlawn on Saturday. Remember the name Brandon McAdams for TCN. He dropped 27 on the Buccs and the Panthers made a statement early in the CCC that they will be a team to be reckoned with.

Bethel won’t be able to look past the North Panthers on Friday, but if they do earn a victory against the Panthers, pay attention to their game on Saturday against Middletown Fenwick. Fenwick plays in the Greater Catholic League and is one of the smaller schools in that conference. They play the likes of St. Xavier and usually their record looks pretty sore by tournament time, but the last few years they made a few Division III teams pay if you only looked at the season records. This could be a good bell weather game for the Boys of Brandt.

Miami East cruised to two big victories over the weekend with a 35 point win over the young Blazers from National Trail and 30 point win over Division III foe Northwestern. Keep an eye on East’s schedule here in December. They face Miami County rivals Covington at home and Bethel on the road before the Holiday break. Dan Hickman scored 27 against N’western on Saturday. Combine that with the offensive output of Logan Carey and Tyler Dunivan the trio averaged 46 points per game over the weekend.

Franklin Monroe started the weekend undefeated by knocking off their Miami County neighbor Newton and defeating Dixie. The Jets displayed their characteristic defense from last season and held the Indians and the Greyhounds to below 50 points. Balanced scoring from their seniors was the calling card for the Jets as Ty French, Austin Pressly and Gavin Glascoe averaged 12.5, 16.5 and 15 PPG respectively.

Arcanum and Tri-Village also displayed their defensive intensity over the weekend. Arcanum held Ansonia to 41 points on Friday to start conference play 1-0. TV dropped Bradford and National Trail at home this weekend to keep their opponents below 45 points. The game of the week for this Friday will be in New Madison as the Trojans visit the friendly confines of the Battleground.

The Mississinawa Valley Blackhawks started their typical tough schedule on the road with two teams from the Midwest Athletic Conference in Parkway and Versailles. The ‘hawks struggled against Parkway on Friday but returned to battle within 10 points of Versailles on Saturday. MV will face Franklin Monroe and Fairlawn at home this Friday and Saturday.

The side game of the week; Bradford travels to Newton in a game that the Bradford faithful have to a little… faith. Can the ‘Roaders neutralize the size of Justin Hutton the Indian defense in hostile territory to earn their first conference win since the 99-2000 season?

Games to watch this week: Friday; Arcanum at Tri-Village; TCN at Bethel; Bradford at Newton. Saturday; TV at Ft. Recovery; TCN @ Eaton; Covington at Versailles; Middletown Fenwick at Bethel.

Girls Basketball:
National Trail, Ansonia, Arcanum, Bethel, Miami East and Mississinawa Valley started out their first week of league play with victories. On the injury front, Miami East’s Katie Mengos has a broken bone in her hand and her return is unknown at this time. Covington continues to struggle with injuries and a tough schedule to start the season 0-4. Other program that we are not used to see with 0’s in the win column is Franklin Monroe. Don’t expect that trend to continue under the veteran leadership of coach Chris Besecker and Ned Gray.

Tri-Village began a ‘rebuilding’ year by winning their own Bill Burkett tournament. The talk of the tournament was their freshman post player Kayla Linkous. Linkous dropped 32 points on the Ansonia Tigers in the championship game as the Patriots edged out the Tigers by 2 points. The Tigers got their revenge a week later and beat the Patriots in the first conference game of the season.

Twin Valley South lost their conference opener to rival TCN, but have won their last 3 non conference games to start the season 3-1. The South Panthers will be tested this week as they face a good Milton Union team on the road and host Arcanum to face their fast and potent offense that has generated over 65 PPG in three outings.

Games to watch this week: Monday; rival game with Arcanum at FM. Tuesday; TVS at Milton Union. Thursday; Bethel at TV, Arcanum at TVS. Saturday; Ansonia at Parkway, Arcanum at Versailles; Tri-County North at Eaton.