The Beechwood Tigers came to Alexandria Thursday night, coming off of victories over Gallatin County, and a 76-32 decision over Scott twenty-four hours ago.  The two teams battled to a 16-13 Beechwood edge after one, but the home team caught fire, putting up 22 points in the second stanza, a period in which we out-scrapped, out-rebounded, and outscored the visitors 22-10, giving the Mustangs a 35-26 advantage at halftime.  In that quarter we nailed six 3-pointers, with three of them coming from Junior Drew Steffen who put up 16 of his game/career high 27 points in that 8 minute span. 

On the broadcast I warned of Beechwood playing inspired basketball out of the locker room at halftime and I wasn’t wrong.  As it took the former Red and White Tigers about two and a half minutes to eradicate that deficit and then a minute or two later, build a 48-41 lead of their own.   At that point it would have been easy for us to concede the match to the highly touted Tigers and take a sizeable loss.  The encouraging part of the Mustangs being overcome in the third period is that we battled back, overcame the 54-45 third quarter hole and went on a run of our own and re-took the lead at 57-56 with 3:14 remaining in the game, putting us back in a position to win.  However, Beechwood was up to the task, hit their free-throws down the stretch and prevailed 65-59 to escape Alexandria with the win.  In addition to Drew Steffen’s career high 27, Brady Boruske added 13.

The Mustangs will welcome some down time over the weekend, with the seniors on retreat, before getting back to NKAC DIV II competition, taking on another highly regarded opponent in the Holy Cross Indians in a tripleheader on Tuesday in Latonia.  Holmes will come to call on Thursday.