The only thing that could stop Peyton Czarapata in the first half was foul trouble.
Bonduel High School’s 6-foot-5 center had 18 points in the opening seven minutes, despite picking up two fouls, and finished with 29 points as Bonduel beat Suring 70-59 in a nonconference boys basketball game Tuesday.
“He’s a big guy and we go to him a lot,” Bonduel coach Duke Copp said. “We just haven’t played very well lately, so we wanted to come out, try to get the kids to have fun and play good basketball, and they did.”
After losing three games in a row, Copp was hoping to see a resurgence against Suring.
“We said tonight, either our season is going to go up or down,” Copp said. “I think this tells me we’re going to be heading back.”
Czarapata, who came into the game averaging 20.9 points per game, shot 12 for 17 from the field and scored 20 of his points in the paint. Bonduel controlled the inside, outscoring Suring 36-26.
“We tried to run through our offense, get the ball inside,” said Czarapata, who added eight rebounds, four on the offensive glass. “We knew we had the size mismatch, and that’s basically what we had to do.”
Suring coach Jim Keeffe used an athletic player in John Christensen to guard Czarapata. Christensen is a good three inches shorter than Czarapata and has a smaller frame.
Suring (7-7) went with a 2-3 zone in the first half, but Bonduel (6-8) scorched that for 45 points.
“If you want to take hindsight, I wouldn’t have started out in zone,” Keeffe said. “I would have started out in man and we would have packed it in. That’s what we did the second half. … I thought we did a better job.”
For the game, the Bears shot 44.3 percent (27 for 61) from the field, while the Eagles hit 34.4 percent (21 for 61).
It was all Czarapata early for Bonduel. The big man had four straight baskets – 10 points during the stretch – to put the Bears up 19-7. Brandon Olsen had a nice first half for the Bears with 9 points during a couple-minute stretch to put Bonduel up 43-21.
Down 45-24 at halftime, Suring went on a 7-2 run to open the second half. Ryan Mahoney, who scored a team-high 20 points, drained a 3-pointer to make it 47-31. However, Bonduel answered with a 9-2 spurt to go back up 23 points.
With Bonduel holding a comfortable 64-40 advantage with 6 remaining, Suring dialed up its offense and went on a 13-0 run to cut its deficit to 11 points. Christensen, who finished with 19 points, scored 7 points in the quick run. With 1:46 left, Bears guard Trevor Pedersen drained a 3-pointer to all but end the game. The senior finished with 13 points.
Copp knows his team needs to close out games better, but he’ll take the victory.
“We’ve been struggling, so that was nice,” Copp said. “We’ve had leads all year long and given them up, so it was nice to hang on.”
The win is the first of the season at home for Bonduel, which is now 1-4 in its gym.
Bonduel (70)
Pedersen 4 2-4 13, Robaidek 1 0-0 2, Petcka 3 0-0 7, Olsen 4 3-5 11, Czarapata 12 4-4 29, Thiel 1 0-0 3, Bohm 1 0-0 3, Allen 1 0-0 2.
Suring (59)
Christensen 7 5-7 19, Geniesse 4 0-0 10, R. Mahoney 6 4-4 20, Hischke 1 0-0 2, Runge 3 2-5 8.
Suring 24 35 – 59
Bonduel 45 25 – 70
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