BETHALTO - It’s been an up-and-down year for both Civic Memorial and Roxana’s boys' basketball programs, both of which entered Tuesday’s matchup with sub-.500 records and both looking for consistency as they hit the home stretch of the basketball season. It was all CM, all night in Bethalto, where the hosts prevailed 55-40.

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“I love the way we competed,” said CM head coach Lee Green following his team’s big win. “We want to compete at the highest level. Guys are still playing hard and buying in.”

Hustle was evident among the Eagles on the floor. Adam Ogden had a number of steals and a number of pass breakups that don’t appear on the stat sheet but kept the visiting Shells from creating offensively when he was on the floor. On the stat sheet, Ogden led all scorers with 17 points, just ahead of senior seven-footer Sam Buckley’s 14 on the night.

Sean Maberry led Roxana with 15 points, Chris Walleck had 11 points, Evan Wells added nine points, and Aidan Briggs had five points.

“With Sam (Buckley) being the big guy down low if you can have an outside shooting game like Adam (Ogden) gives us, it makes us tough to guard,” said Green on his leading scorers. “Then all efforts go to guarding Adam, which leaves the post open. They double Sam in the post so Sam kicks it out and Adam’s open outside. When he’s making shots from outside, it’s huge for us.”

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Roxana had no answer for the dynamic duo of Adam Ogden and Sam Buckley defensively. Chris Walleck and Sean Maberry led the Shells offensively, but Roxana struggled to create open looks on a consistent basis.

The Shells were likely looking for a respite from conference play, where they’ve yet to win during the 22-23 campaign. What they found was a Civic Memorial team that pressed the reset button last week and looked confident in all aspects of their game on Tuesday night.

“Last week we had a bad loss to Columbia, I didn’t like the way we played,” said Eagles head coach Lee Green. “We had two good practices heading into (Friday night’s game against) Waterloo, and we find a way to beat them by 1. We had a workout on Sunday, and had a great practice yesterday heading into today.”

“We’re getting better, we’ve gotten better all year.” Green continued. “Now we have a big game Friday night against Highland, a conference game and they’re a very good team. Now we’re going to have two good days of practice to get ready to face Highland right here.”

The 13-14 Eagles now look ahead to a big game on Friday night, hosting a very good Highland Bulldogs team that currently sits at 18-9 on the season. A win for the Eagles would tie them with Highland in conference play.

With the loss, Roxana falls to 10-18 on the season. The Shells travel to Columbia for in-conference action on Friday, still looking for their first victory in conference play.

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