Thanks to great free throw shooting late and  missed opportunities by the opposition, the RBHS Bruins found a way to notch a win on Tuesday night against East High School, winning 66-58. The win propels the team to a 4-1 on the season, rebounding from last Saturday night’s against DeSmet.
The chance to get back in winning form came as quite the struggle for the Bruins though, as a quick, hard working East High School team out of Kansas City would contend for the lead with RBHS in the first half.
Bruins head coach Jim Scanlon was aware of how capable the Bears were, and made a point to his team to not underestimate their abilities.
“I never underestimated them,” Scanlon said. “They’re a great team and one that came into this game undefeated, so I really just think that mistakes early on were made because we’re not a consistent team. We haven’t played a full basketball game all year.”
Senior guard Trey Smith would agree with his coach, believing the team didn’t do what they needed to start off on the right foot.
“We just weren’t playing our game, and it hurt us.” Smith said. “We weren’t doing what was right at the start and it showed.”  
In the second half a quick swing of great free throw shooting and superb play from lowerclassmen powered the Bruins through to a win, as East piled up numerous mistakes on both sides of the ball in what was a game of very sloppy play.
“It was pretty obvious that we weren’t doing things right at the beginning,” Scanlon said. “But in the end our freshman were able to make big plays when it counts. I don’t necessarily want our offense to run like that, but I’ll take the win however I can get it.”
With the win comes a quick sigh of relief, but will only be followed by a long period of intense training as the boys must get ready for key matchups with St. Thomas Aquinas, Battle, and Lee’s Summit West.
“We just have to work on being more consistent.” Trey Smith said. “We have a lot of work to do to get to a point where we’re consistent like we should be.”