The Titan basketball team faced off against the Boonville Pioneers on January 14. The Titans bounced back after coming off a close game against the Princeton Tigers. Titan head coach Mark Rohrer thought the boys played well and limited the offense of the Pioneers.

“I thought Thursday night was one of our better defensive performances of the season,” Rohrer said. “Boonville has a high-powered offense, and we held them to their lowest point total of the season.”

Boonville has been averaging more than 60 points a game, but Gibson Southern kept them to just 45 at the Titan Fieldhouse.

Gibson Southern started off quickly and won the tip off, taking an early lead of 3-0 after a three-pointer from senior Ethan Spindler. The Titans and Pioneers battled in the first quarter, which ended with a narrow 13-12 lead for the Titans. 

Halfway through the second quarter, the boys started to pull away from Boonville and were up 23-14. Boonville added a few more unanswered shots heading into halftime, but the Titans kept the lead, 23-19. 

The third quarter started with another three from Spindler to up the score to 26-19. The Titans and Pioneers kept at one another in the third quarter. However, Gibson Southern further expanded its lead after two free throws from junior Maxx Wilson, giving the Titans a double-digit lead of 38-27. 

The Titans maintained their lead, 51-41, with three minutes to go in the fourth quarter.

“I liked the way we controlled the fourth quarter, as well with our shot selection and composure,” Rhorer said. “Those are all things we are going to need to continue to do moving forward.”   

After a few more baskets by each team, the final horn sounded, and Gibson Southern came out on top, 57-45. 

Rohrer felt the team did a good job overall.

“We have really been progressing in a positive direction throughout the season, but I still feel like we have room for improvement,” he said. “I’m happy with how hard we are playing and with how guys are playing their roles at this point.”

Wilson was matched up against Boonville’s 6’4” senior Clay Conner, the leading scorer for the Pioneers. Wilson held him to a total of ten points. 

“I took pride in guarding their leading scorer and wanted to prevent him from scoring to put our team in the best position to win,” Wilson said.

The previous game the Titans lost to county rival Princeton, 45-43, in a very close dogfight throughout the entire game. Spindler did not let the loss to Princeton get him down; the team was ready to bounce back.

“We didn’t let it get to us,” Spindler said. “I feel like we definitely played like we should have against Boonville, which was good and we all played very well together.”

While the tide has shifted for Gibson Southern, there are still things the boys need to work on in the coming weeks.

“We can continue to improve our basketball IQ through film and game experiences, and I am also hoping we can simply make shots more consistently down the stretch,” Rhorer said. “ We have been in a ton of close games this season, and we have learned from our struggles to close out some of those games. But, I hope that down the stretch we can turn some of these close losses we’ve had into wins.”

The Titans moved to 4-9 on the season after their Boonville win. They will travel to Tell City on January 20 to face the Marksmen.