Team improves over last season, sets records
By Kevin Cunningham
Correspondent
Much like the girls team, the Delavan-Darien boys basketball team had a turn-around from a year ago.
Last season, Comets head coach Bob Beighton’s team went 7-15 overall and then lost in the first round of the Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association tournament.
This season, the team won six more games, entering the postseason with a 13-9 record. The Comets earned a No. 5 seed in the tournament, which gave the team a first-round bye, but had to hit the road and play No. 4-seeded Fort Atkinson in its first playoff game.
Despite being on the road, the Comets went into Fort Atkinson and had a 38-36 lead entering halftime. After the half, Fort Atkinson took over, especially defensively. After scoring 38 points in the first half, the Comets were held to just 23 in the second, leading to the 74-61 defeat.
“We played Fort tough but wore out against a very physical team in the second half,” Beighton said. “We executed an excellent game plan, but we simply ran out of steam.”
Beighton also talked about some of the highlights when looking back on the season, like finishing in the top half of the Southern Lakes Conference and having a winning conference and overall record. This year’s Comets team also set the school record mark for total points scored.
The team also hit the most three-pointers in a single game in school history with 17, and in one game, senior guard Lucas Delara hit a school-record nine of them. With all the points scored and three-pointers being attempted and made came a 7-of-26 showing from behind the arc against Fort Atkinson.
Austin Ryan made and shot a bulk of them, finishing 5-of-12. Outside of Ryan, the team went 2-of-14, and according to wissports.net, the team shot as many two-point field goals as three-pointers, with 26.
Ryan led all Comet scorers with 21 while Brandon Edmonds added 12. The game-high scorer was Fort Atkinson’s Tristan Shoup, with 27. As a team, the Comets recorded 12 assists and six steals to go along with its five turnovers.
Fouls proved to be a difference, as senior guard William Brown – who has committed to Carroll University, a Division III school – eventually fouled out of the game. Edmonds also fouled out, and Jayce Crull, the team’s third-highest scorer in the game, ended the contest with four fouls.
In the next round, Fort Atkinson went on to beat No. 1-seeded Westosha Central, 43-31 to earn the regional title. Fort Atkinson plays No. 2-seeded Burlington next, for the right to play in the sectional final.
Delara, the Comets’ leading scorer this season, ended the year averaging 17.7 points per game while shooting more than 41 percent from three. Edmonds finished with a team-high 6.7 rebounds per game, and Brown ended the year atop the team in assists and steals per game, averaging 4.7 and 1.7, respectively.
Of the squad’s top six scorers, the top three were seniors Delara, Brown and Ryan, while the next three were juniors Edmonds, Seth Kirsch and Crull. The trio of Edmonds, Kirsch and Crull are all forwards and are either 6-foot-1 or 6-foot-2.
“We look forward to seeing our juniors grow into their roles as senior leaders and look forward to some great sophomore and freshmen contributions as well,” Beighton said.
Looking back on this season, Beighton said he will remember the team’s dedication.
“I probably won’t remember much in 30 years seeing as I will be 80 then … but I will remember the great kids and how hard they worked.”
