By Dan Truttschel
Correspondent
The Big Foot High School boys basketball team ran into a focused and determined East Troy squad Tuesday night.
And there really wasn’t much the Chiefs could do to stop them.
East Troy, which has a monster matchup later this week with a possible conference title on the line, jumped out to a 27-14 lead in the first quarter and never looked back in a commanding 81-50 Rock Valley Conference win.
The loss dropped the Chiefs to 2-8 in the RVC and 3-13 overall.
“We played better, but we still went on stretches where we didn’t score and let them get baskets,” Big Foot coach Mike Dowden said.
“As I said after the game, we still go through stretches of the night where we are fighting what we want to do as team.”
Big Foot trailed by 14 points at halftime, but any hopes of a comeback were dashed in the third quarter, as East Troy built its lead to 23 at 62-39.
East Troy’s balanced offensive attack presents a number of problems, Dowden said.
“All five players can score and they run their stuff really well,” he said. “As I told the team, they do all the simple things really, really well, and that is what makes them successful.”
Beau Cary led the Chiefs with 17 points, followed by Nico Tovar with 10.
Cary continues to figure out what it takes to compete at the varsity level, Dowden said.
“Him and I had a chat about how hard he needs to play every night, every practice, every drill,” he said. “He knows the game and what to do, but needs to get more comfortable with playing at game speed and how hard he has to play each night.”
A rough second half was Big Foot’s undoing earlier in the week in a 79-46 loss Jan. 29 to visiting McFarland.
McFarland, which leads East Troy by a game in the North Division standings and hosts the Trojans Friday night, outscored Big Foot 49-25 in the last two quarters.
Big Foot led 12-11 after the opening period, before the Spartans began to pull away. McFarland led 30-21 at halftime.
Greco led Big Foot with 13 points, followed by Tovar with six and Chandler Hehr, Alex Landers and Mark Schauf each with five.
The Chiefs hit the road twice the week for RVC matchups. Big Foot was at Parkview Thursday night and plays at Evansville next Monday, Feb. 9.
“As always, we need to keep getting better,” Dowden said. “We have less than a month of the regular season together, and we need to keep improving for the back stretch of the season.”
