Cougars quickly turn tables on Belmont with 69-60 win

Campbell's Logan Rice goes up for two against Belmont's Brody Ennis as Red Raiders Anakin Underhill (24) looks on during Monday night's clash of Divison III contenders in Litchfield. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)
LITCHFIELD – Justin DiBenedetto admits his Campbell High School boys basketball team had Monday night’s rematch with unbeaten Belmont circled.
And why not? The Red Raiders were sitting atop Division III and had whacked a shorthanded Cougar team by19 points at home just 10 days ago.
Time to make amends, and the Cougars did just that, turning a 41-all tie after three quarters into a 69-60 win.
And that’s after falling behind 16-4 to start.
“It’s tough, we started exactly the way we did last time,” DiBenedetto said. “Tonight the message was simple. We planned all week for this. We had a great game plan. … We knew if we pressured the ball better, we would make it tough for them.”
Boy, did they ever. Belmont, now 7-1, could not hold on to the ball through most of the second half. The Cougars got out of their early funk, tying the game by the half at 30-30 on a Logan Rice buzzer-beating layup. Belmont went on a 6-0 run to start the third quarter, but the Cougars came right back and outscored the visitors 11-5 the rest of the quarter.
Then back-to-back 3-pointers by Cayden Deleon and Matt Haley made it a 49-41 game early in the fourth and the Cougars were in control.
“Every single game, even the game we lost, we forced 24 turnovers every single game,” DiBenedetto said. “You might see the scores and say, ‘They’re not holding teams in the 30’s’ but the pace we play at, we go-go-go. We force a ton of turnovers and get a lot of shots.”
And it worked. Belmont was down 11 with 4:50 left and although it cut the gap to six with a minute to play, no one at CHS felt endangered.
“Honestly, what I just told the guys in there, this game and loss is on me,” Belmont coach Tony Martinez said. “I did not do a good enough job preparing them for the zone (defense) and the pressure that Campbell brought tonight.
“We’ve seen a lot of man-to-man all year, and this time of year teams make adjustments and do things, and I didn’t make the adjustments. … This one’s on me. I thought our guys made a great effort, we just didn’t execute.”
Deleon led the lightning quick 6-1 Cougars with 20 points, while Rice added 15, Luke Delia had 14 and Haley 13. The helter-skelter style couldn’t stop 6-foot-6 Red Raider Anakin Underhill from getting 31, but held the rest of the team to 29 and the strategy, with the switch to a zone, worked.
And there was no panic when Belmont scored six points in less than two minutes to start the second half. DiBenedetto quickly called time and the Cougars were a different team thereafter.
“We just went over our defense real quick and I said ‘Just settle in’,” he said. “Doesn’t matter where we were attacking from. We had matchups all over the floor.”
The closest game the Red Raiders had played in was a 16-point win. This one will have ripple effects through Division III, and now everyone knows Campbell – which also handed defending champ St. Thomas its first loss last week – is a legit contender.
“By far we have the toughest schedule in D-III,” DiBenedetto said. “No one’s got it like us. We’re battle tested already.”