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Barneveld boys basketball coach Tyler Sullivan had a pretty good idea what to expect from Madison Abundant Life when they came to the Home of the Eagles for a non-conference game Monday.
Guess what? He was not off in his prediction that it would take a very strong effort to beat them. Lucky for him and the Eagles, that is what he got.
It took a mega-effort the second half to overcome a 33-29 halftime deficit and counteract the lights out shooting of MAB's Blayne Wall and Jacob Koan. Wall scortched the nets for 18 first half points enroute to a game high 28, Koan followed with 20 and contributed 14 of them the second half. They did not make it easy for the Eagles.
But with every player on the team scoring and contributing, the Eagles stayed the course and pulled out a 64-63 win.
Kasey Helgeson led with 14 points while Trenton Owens and Brayden Amble came through with 11 each. Tucker Shipman, who was clutch at the free throw line, finished with nine.
Being clutch at the line was also a big part of Brady Esch's night as he hit two big down the stretch free throws to help seal the win
A relieved Sullivan was a happy coach when the final buzzer sounded.
"Man what a high school basketball game," Sullivan exclaimed. "After watching film on this team, I knew they were really good and it was going to take our best effort to get a win. Thankfully for us, we did that down the stretch and fought back to get a huge win for our guys."
If Sullivan had any doubts they would have appeared early.
"We started out very uncharacteristically, with turnovers and  sloppy offensive possessions," Sullivan said.  "We found ourselves down 9-0 right away, but we battled the entire game to give ourselves a chance. We were down 12 after they hit a big three late in the second half, but we came up with some huge stops and big free throws down the stretch by Brady and Tucker to seal the game."
Some late defense also played into the win.
"Our best defensive possession was the last one forcing a long shot to seal the victory."
It was a good play by the Eagles as MAB had 11 three pointers, seven of them from Wall..
The Eagles saw a different defense from MAB that they had to find a way to figure out.
"They went triangle and two on Kasey and Ryan and it took us a little bit to figure some things out, but credit our guys for sticking with the game plan, "Sullivan said. "As you can tell from our box score, every single guy contributed in multiple ways, and that is only going to continue to make us better. Super proud of my team tonight as this was a good one."
SCORE BY HALVES
MAB 33 30 63
BARNEVELD 29 35 64
BOX SCORE
MAB 63: (fg-ft-tp) Osinowo 0-1-1, Ja. Koan 6-5-20, Jo. Koan 2-1-5, Gonnering 1-1-3, Wallace 0-0-0, Wall 10-1-28, Davison 1-2-4, Whitaker 0-2-2. Totals 20-12/24-63 Fouls-21. Fouled out-Wallace
BARNEVELD 64: Helgeson 5-1-14, Owens 5-1-11, Amble 4-3-11, Shipman 2-5-9, Ward 1-0-2, Gust 2-2-7, Bomkamp 1-3-5,
esch 0-2-2, Poad 1-0-3. Totals 21-17/27-64. Fouls-21
3 point goals:
MAB-Wall 7, Ja. Koan 3, Jo. Koan 2
B-Helgeson 3, Gust 1, Poad 1