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Highland's boys basketball coach Sean Rueter thinks Benton is on the way to running the table the rest of the regular season.
Unfortunately the Cardinals had to play them to find out.
The Zephyrs had a can't miss first half while Highland's shooting was just the opposite in a 67-46 loss at Benton Thursday in a Six Rivers West game.
Benton's lead at halftime was 41-24 and Holden Murphy, along with Will Lawrence, led the charge with 13 points each. Murphy finished the game with 16 and Lawrence 19.
An added dimension to the Zephyrs attack is 6-5 Caleb O'Neill who missed several games over the past year with an ACL injury. O'Neill has worked his way back into playing shape and put in 13 points.
Also getting into double figures for Benton was Dominic Cummings who hit a trio of three pointers on his way to 11.
Iassac Kutzke was the lone Cardinal to find the range for double figures as he had 10, six in the second half. Weston Frost also put in all of his six the second half.
"They just outplayed us from start to finish," said Reuter. "Benton is playing pretty well right now and will be hard to beat the rest of the season."
Reuter said with O'Neill back to full strength the Zephyrs are a total package.
"He's had several games in double figures since he has seen more playing time," Reuter said about O'Neill.
The Cardinals struggled with shooting and ball handling, two areas that are important to do well in when playing a good team.
"We only shot 26% and we had 23 turnovers," Reuter said. "We have to find our scoring again and play with more energy. It is a long season and we have been in a funk lately. We had games in the 70s earlier this season and are not scoring close to that now."
"We have to start playing aggressively again."
SCORE BY HALVES
Highland 24 23 46
Benton 41 26 67
BOX SCORE
HIGHLAND 46: (fg-ft-tp) Oleson 3-3-9. Kutzke 4-2-10, Halverson 0-0-0. Frost 2-2-6, Miller 3-0-7, Smith 0-0-0, Michek 3-1-8, Hying 0-5-5, McCarthy 0-0-0, Welsh 0-1-1. Totals 15-12/22-46 Fouls-14
BENTON 67: Redfearn 0-0-0, Walton 1-0-2, Ward 0-0-0, O'Neill 5-3-13, Jones 3-0-6, Murphy 6-1-16, Lawrence 7-5-19, Fawcett 0-0-0, Brant 0-0-0, Cummings 4-0-11, Krueger 0-0-0. Blaine 0-0-0. Totals 26-9/17-67. Fouls-18. Fouled out-Walton
3 point goals:
H-Miller 1, Michek 1
B-Murphy 3, Cummings 3