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LADUE - The Edwardsville boys basketball team ventured into new territory on Wednesday night with a new leader.
That man is longtime junior varsity coach and now head coach, Dustin Battas.
The new era for the Tigers has gotten off on the right foot with a 53-35 victory over the Oakville Tigers 53-35 in the Ladue Round Robin Tournament at Nielson Gymnasium at Ladue Horton Watkins High School.
Oakville falls to 0-2.
“Winning is always a good reward for the guys. It feels great to get our first win, and they’re relieved and ready to move forward. We’ve been practicing hard for three weeks,” Battas said. “We did a lot of good things to beat a good team like Oakville. They required us to play a lot of different ways. We had to use our whole arsenal.”
Jaylon Tuggle led Edwardsville with 16 points and sophomore forward Brennen Weller who tallied 12 points.
“We had some jitters in the first half, but we were ready to go in the second half. We were able to stick to the game plan,” Tuggle said.
Weller, in his first-ever varsity start, admitted he had overcome some jitters too.
“I was a little nervous in the first half, but the guys had my back, and that made things easier. It helped a lot,” Weller said.
With Jack Marinko (26 points per game) and Caleb Strohmeier (14.9 points per game) graduated, Edwardsville lost nearly three-fourths of their scoring output from a season ago. Senior point guard Malik Robinson, scored nine points, was a vital starter last year and is a full-on team leader now with much more responsibilities.
“Malik’s gotta shelter the storm all the time, and he’s capable. We have a lot of confidence in Malik,” Battas said. “He’s a smart guy. He’s a tough guy who’s been there before.”
After getting off to a 6-2 deficit, Edwardsville but fouth there way back and trailed 10-8 at the end of the first quarter.
Down 12-8 early in the second, Edwardsville would go on a massive 22-6 run.
A three-pointer by Malik Robinson gave Edwardsville the lead for good at 19-16 and led 22-18 at halftime. They carried their momentum into the second half and scored eight straight points that would give them their biggest lead at 30-18.
Edwardsville led 32-23 going into the fourth, but Oakville trimmed the lead down to 35-31 midway through the quarter. However, Edwardsville managed to go on an 18-4 run to put the game away thanks to steals they turned into points and timely free throw shooting.
Weller, who scored six points in that run had by that time overcame his nerves and so did the rest of the team by in large.
“I started to feel a lot more comfortable in the second half. I think the whole team did. Coach gave us a good talk at halftime, and we came out ready,” Weller said. “We outworked them, and it gave us the outcome we wanted.”
Battas was pleased with his team’s ability to hold Oakville to 35 points for their first game of the season.
“Defense has to be consistent all the time,” Battas said. “Holding a team like them to 35 points is going to help us win games. I actually thought we executed pretty well just our timing was a little bit off. As the game wore on it seemed like our timing and executing got better and better.”
Edwardsville (1-0) will meet the host Rams at 7:15 p.m. tonight to close out the three-team tournament.
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