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WELLSBURG -- Brooke coach Adam Shinsky and his Bruins were well aware what kind of a difference maker Cameron senior Trevor Beresford could be heading into their matchup with the Dragons Wednesday night in the opening round of the Brooke Holiday Tournament.
So, after playing against Beresford numerous times in the summer, as well as a few of his players working out with the Cameron big man, Shinsky and his staff watched enough film and did enough preparation to try their best to get Beresford in foul trouble.
That mission was more than accomplished with the Dragons' standout watching a significant amount of the contest from the bench, before fouling out in the fourth quarter, with the Bruins outscoring their guests by a 34-15 margin with Beresford not on the court.
Seniors Alex Isinghood and Cole Sperlazza combined for 49 points and Brooke overcame a sluggish start, that saw the Bruins hit just two of 15 first quarter shots, before taking control in the second quarter and eventually holding on for a hard-fought 57-46 victory over Cameron at Brooke High School.
With the victory Shinsky's 4-2 record club advances to the tonight's 8 p.m. championship game against powerful Mt. Lebanon, which picked up a 54-51, overtime, win over Bloom-Carroll in Wednesday's lid-lifter. Meanwhile, Coach Tom Hart's 2-2 Dragons will face Bloom-Carroll in the consolation game at 6 p.m.
"Alex (Isinghood) and Cole (Sperlazza) were the top two scorers in the Valley last year and both are up at the top again this season," Shinsky said. "But we have been waiting on them to have a game like this together and (Wednesday) was easily their best combined game so far.
"The kids were upset about losing our last game and we challenged them to come out rebound against Cameron, which has a great small-school team and could very easily contend for the Class A state championship.
"The kids showed a lot of resilience (Wednesday) and I can't say enough about their play."
Things didn't start out very pretty for the hosts with Beresford scoring eight points in the first quarter as Cameron led by as many as 10 before settling for a 16-8 advantage after one. However, while Beresford scored eight points on six shots over the opening eight minutes, he managed just one more shot and two points the remainder of the night while battling foul trouble.
A Nathan Haeberle triple just 23 seconds into the second quarter put the lead back at nine for the visitors, 19-10, before Brooke's dynamic duo started taking over. The Bruins used a 9-0 run to knot the count and after Cole Burkett put the Dragons back in front with a basket, Sperlazza drained a long-range bomb to give Shinsky's crew the lead for good at 22-21.
Isinghood scored nine of his game-high 25 points in the second quarter while Sperlazza had eight of his 24 in the frame, but a late three from Chris McCauley trimmed the Brooke lead to just 26-24 at the break.
With the Bruins nursing a 30-29 advantage at the 5:14 mark of the third Beresford was whistled for his fourth foul and sent back to the bench as the hosts closed on a 13-6 run to assume a 43-35 upperhand with eight minutes to play.
The fateful fifth personal foul came at the 2:35 mark of the fourth with the score sitting at 49-44 as Brooke closed on an 8-2 run to put things away. Sperlazza scored eight more points over the final eight minutes, including hitting six of eight charity tosses down the stretch.
"Beresford is a phenomenal player, and we knew that coming in," Shinsky said. "Cole (Sperlazza), Alex (Isinghood) and Ryan (Knox) all work out with him in the summer and we have played against him seven or eight times, so we watched the film and felt like we could get a couple charging fouls against him and we did.
"I also can't say enough about the job that Jason Varner did on him defensively and then after he went to the bench, we moved Jason over to (Cole) Burkett and he did an excellent job on him as well. He does everything we ask of him and then he goes out and gets 13 rebounds as well.
"Our goal when I came in here two years ago was to start winning basketball games and we are doing that. We are sitting at 4-2 right now, but we know we should be 5-1 or 6-0. There is nothing we can do about that, but we need to keep winning. We have a powerful Mt. Lebanon team on Thursday and we are looking forward to going up on the hill to Wheeling Park next week."
Brooke turned the ball over 14 times, nine fewer than the Dragons, but were outrebounded by a 26-24 margin. The Bruins did have only three starters, and four players total, score on the night. Burkett and Lance Hartley each tallied 12 points for Cameron while Beresford finished with 10. Hartley also had a team-high eight rebounds.
"I felt like a Trevor (Beresford) had a couple of fouls in the first half that were his, but the last couple they called were a different story," Hart commented. "But we just didn't execute our offense. Even with him off the floor we still have length and size, but we didn't box out and we let them have too many second chance points. We knew coming in we needed to win the 50-50 balls and get rebounds and the fact that we didn't do that was a huge difference.
"We were moving the ball well inside early in the game, getting good penetration, but we weren't taking open shots and were looking to pass instead which is a lack of focus and execution.
"But all-in-all this is a great experience for us. When we got invited to this we knew the competition was going to be good and the schools were going to be big. We are going to learn lessons being in this tournament and it is going to make us a lot better in the long run."
Cameron actually had one more field goal than Brooke, 20-19, but the Bruins canned 16 of 24 from the line while the Dragons were just three of eight.
Brooke Holiday Tournament
Brooke 57, Cameron 46
Cameron 16 8 11 11 — 46
Brooke 8 18 17 14 — 57
C-Powell 1 0-2 2; Burkett 5 1-2 12; Whichterman 2 0-0 4; Beresford 5 0-2 10; Hartley 5 2-2 12; McCauley 1 0-0 3; Haeberle 1 0-0 3. Totals: 20 3-8 46.
B-Taylor 0 0-0 0; Knox 0 0-0 0; Isinghood 11 2-4 25; Sperlazza 5 12-15 24; Varner 2 1-3 5; Marks 1 1-1 3; Orban 0 0-0 0; Sperringer 0 0-0 0. Totals: 19 16-24.
3-Pt. Goals: Burkett, McCauley, Haeberle; Sperlazza 2, Isinghood.