BASKETBALL: Strong second half lifts Panthers over Waterloo
</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[Steve Brueggeman poured in 21 points and Pinckneyville outscored Waterloo 31-13 after the half to beat the Bulldogs 48-40 on Tuesday night at Thomas Gymnasium.
"We had three days of pretty good practices, I thought we'd be ready to play, but we really weren't," said Panthers' head coach Bob Waggoner. "It took a while to wake them up, we challenged them at halftime to come out and give effort and try and cut into the lead and they did a heck of a job to get us back tied up in the third quarter."
"I want to give Waterloo credit, we can talk about what we didn't do but talk about what they did, they came out ready to play and were really aggressive and played a good first half."
Both teams showed a bit of holiday break rust, stumbling to a 5-4 score with 2:00 to go in the opening quarter before Brad Dillengerger hit a three-pointer for Waterloo and Bryant Shute sank one for the Panthers to make it 8-7 Pinckneyville after one period.
A pullup jumper from Alex Wittenauer put the Bulldogs up 17-13 early in the third, and Wittenauer added a three-pointer with 12 seconds left in the half for an 8-point lead.
Just before the break, a traveling violation gave the ball back to Waterloo, and Dillenberger went coast-to-coast for a layup in just 6.2 seconds before the halftime buzzer for a 27-17 Bulldogs' lead in front of a sparse, unusually quiet crowd at PCHS.
"It was a sort of a passive environment," Waggoner said. "Normally on a Friday or Saturday night it's totally different and it seems like we're geared up."
Pinckneyville shot out to a 7-0 run to begin the second half with four points from Shute and a drive and finish for a three-point play by Brueggeman.
Nippe added a three-pointer later in the period and the Panthers trailed by a single point heading to the fourth after using a zone defense to try to confuse the Bulldogs.
"We did try to pick up the pace a little bit, went to a little zone trap, we run it every now and then, we haven't used it much this year, but we thought it made a big difference," Waggoner said. "Early on they were hurting us on the basket cuts and the dribble drive and I thought maybe the zone would take it away a little bit."
With the score knotted at 38-38, 2010 Duster Thomas Hoops Classic MVP Kyle Lamb finally got into the scorebook with a bucket to put the Panthers up two with 3:30 to go in the game. Lamb suffered through some foul trouble early in the game and spent a large amount of time on the bench.
The Bulldogs remained cold from the floor and struggled to maintain possession in the closing minutes, then had to foul to stay alive. Pinckneyville was up to the task at the line, making 8-of-11 at the stripe in the final three minutes and outscoring Waterloo 16-7 in the fourth quarter.
"The big thing is coming out with a win," said Waggoner. "Earlier in the year we were learning from losses, and now we can get an ugly one and learn from a win and it feels a little bit better."
Shute finished with 8 points for Pinckneyville, Hunter Queen had 7, Nippe 6, Christian Shopinski 4 and Lamb 2.
The Panthers (8-4, 1-2) look for a key conference when they host Sparta (6-9, 2-1) on Friday before a trip to Vandalia on Saturday night.
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