by: Zachary Renville and Donivan Neugebauer

Friday’s basketball game was a good one. Rapid City Central High School hosted Brandon Valley. The Cobblers looked to get a win, and they meant it. Cody Harris, starting forward for the Cobblers, looked to start the game early, scoring the Cobblers’ first 8 points. With that the game looked over right at the start as the Cobblers took an 8-0 lead. Brandon Valley took shot after shot and couldn’t get anything to sink.

Other notable players staring quickly for the Cobblers were Robert Connot and Ryne Lees. Connot was the Cobblers’ second leading scorer on Friday night. The Cobblers looked great all night; everyone was lining up and hitting their shots. For Ian Barse things started off slowly, but he would come into play later in the game hitting clutch free throws.

The Cobblers stayed consistent all game and at half they held a ten point lead, and it was helpful, because they didn’t have to worry about bad shots or bad possessions. Cody Harris was also consistent all game, shooting proficiently from beyond the arch and applying good defense to compliment the Cobblers’ offense.

Later in the game the Cobblers had a few fast breaks, with Harris’s good defense setting up two of them, one resulting in a jam that got the Cobbler crowd pumped and on their feet all game long.

The fourth quarter came along and at this point the game slowed down. Brandon Valley headed into the period with 10 team fouls, and for the Cobblers this would be a test of how well they could shoot free throws. Brandon Valley fouled a lot, sending the Cobblers to the free throw line constantly. Ian Barse came up clutch, hitting free throw after free throw, but Brandon Valley had some fight in them. With 2:00 minutes remain in the fourth, and everyone in the crowd leaving, thinking it’s over, Brandon Valley started chucking three pointers and praying that they would fall through the hoop. Their strategy began to work and things were getting serious for this Brandon Valley team as they hit enough shots to cut the lead to six, putting them right back into the game.

Things slipped once again for Brandon Valley though as they kept sending Cobbler players to the line, and once the Cobblers were hitting all their free throws everyone knew the game was over. Cody finished the game with 20, and led the Central Cobblers to victory.