Boys basketball: Bulldogs’ bench big part of 62-18 home win over Reed-Custer

STREATOR – Streator boys basketball coach Beau Doty mentioned before the season he felt he probably had more worthy starters than spots in his starting five this season.

It sure looked like it during Tuesday’s 62-18, Illinois Central Eight Conference handling of Reed-Custer.

After an admittedly sloppy start offensively offset by another in-your-face defensive showing, the Bulldogs’ starting five received a significant spark off the bench from Cade Peterson (14 points, four steals, three assists) and Nolan Lukach (nine points, nine rebounds) – both rotational regulars and at times starters last season – in pulling away from a young, learning-on-the-job Comets team.

“Well, we talked about in practice applying pressure. We wanted to establish that, play gaps and start at the ball, dive on the floor, and just go after the ball,” Lukach said.

“I like the energy [coming off the bench] brings to it, because when I come into the game, we’re usually up a little bit ... and I just like to get in there, get as many rebounds as possible, really jump for the ball, and then try to get some putbacks.”

Landon Muntz with 11 points, Logan Aukland with seven points, Isaiah Weibel with six points and three steals, Christian Benning with a five-point, five-assist performance, Quinn Baker with four points to go with seven rebounds and Nolan Ketcham off the bench with six points led the attack for Streator (4-2, 2-0 ICE).

“We really feel that our depth is our strength,” Bulldogs coach Beau Doty said. “We’ve got a lot of veteran guys who have been battle-tested over the last two years, and we still have one to add when Matt [Williamson, last season’s starting two-guard] gets back healthy.

“At the beginning of the season I said we have seven starters. Maybe it’s eight now, guys who can. I saw a great quote from Matt Painter [head coach] at Purdue that said in situations like this guys can do one of two things.

“You can sit and sulk, then when you’re number’s called, you’re not ready. Or you can support that guy in front of you and always be ready, and when your number’s called you’re going to perform when you get that opportunity.

“You look at Lukach and Cade, guys who both [started some] last year. They haven’t sulked. They’ve been great teammates, they were ready to perform, and they performed at a high level.”

Cooper Smith finished with eight points and three blocked shots for Reed-Custer (1-2, 1-1), which didn’t score until more than five minutes into the game, shot 13.9% (5 of 36) from the field and was pressured into 20 turnovers by the Bulldogs.

“You can’t start the game like that in a varsity game,” first-year Comets coach Tyler Schoonover said. “Give [Streator] credit. They return their top seven.”

Streator, meanwhile, after committing six first-quarter turnovers, only committed five the rest of the night – none in the second quarter – and shot 42.9% (24 of 56), including 47.1% (8 of 17) from 3-point range. That allowed the Bulldogs’ advantage to balloon to 10 points (12-2) on a Peterson bucket in the closing minute of the opening quarter, 20 points (24-4) on a Benning free throw 1:51 into the second, 30 points (37-7) on a Peterson basket set up by a nice-look Benning assist just before halftime and 40 points (56-15) on a Ketcham floater with 1:22 remaining in the game.

Reed-Custer, meanwhile, never could get on track, prompting the fourth-quarter running clock. The Comets will look to bounce back Friday at home against Manteno.

“We’re a very young basketball team,” Schoonover said. “We have zero kids with varsity experience, a lot of juniors. We have a lot of work to do on handling pressure and stuff like that.”

The Bulldogs will set out on a three-game ICE Conference road trip beginning with Friday’s visit to Coal City.