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Bartlett goes inside to drop East Aurora

So often this season Bartlett's boys basketball team has lived or died with the 3-point shot.

However, on Thursday night the Hawks took a different approach after falling behind visiting East Aurora early on by getting the ball inside. The result was a rousing success as Bartlett overcame an 8-point deficit to go on to a 58-51 win in Upstate Eight Valley Division action.

Bartlett (10 - 6, 2-2) trailed 19-11 early in the second quarter, but went on a 12-0 run to pull ahead 23-19. The Hawks still led 26-23 at the break.

All 15 points in the second quarter for Hawks came off plays inside. Bret Hasenberg had a bucket and 5 free throws in the quarter to lead the turnaround.

"We came out flat in the first quarter and they came out with a lot of energy," Bartlett coach Jim Wolfsmith said. "It took us a little while to adjust and get settled in, but once we did we stopped settling for 3s and got some ball movement inside. We are trying to do more of working from the inside out. When you get the inside game going that's when the 3s really start to fall."

East did a nice job of containing the Hawks' top scoring threat, Robby Jimenez, and held him to 10 points. However, Hasenberg helped to pick up the slack with a team-high 17 points, including 9 of 9 shooting from the free throw line.

"They were running a lot of their defense to stop Robby," Hasenberg said. "But this game showed you can't just worry about one guy on our team. We have some other guys who can score."

The Hawks did hit three 3-pointers in the second half from Ben Reyes, Brett Awalt, and Jimenez as they extended their lead to as many as 14 points.

East (4-11, 0-4) pulled back to within 6 points in the final minutes, but Awalt helped seal the win with 4 free throws down the stretch. He finished with 13 points and 9 rebounds.

Ronald Mcbride had 19 points to lead the Tomcats in scoring.

"We came out with a lot of energy and had a good surge at the start," East coach Wendell Jefferies said. "But Bartlett is a veteran team and we knew they would respond. They punched us right in the mouth in the third quarter. Give our kids credit they kept fighting back right to the end, but it's tough to come back on a good veteran team like Bartlett."

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