The Becker Bulldog boys basketball team took on the titans of the M8 conference in their past two games and came out on the short end of both scores.
Last Friday, the Bulldogs hosted Cambridge-Isanti, the second place team int he M8 Conference. The Bluejackets used their inside presence to build a 39-24 halftime lead before going on to win, 79-53.
The loss slid Becker into a tie for fourth place in the M8 with Big Lake, as both teams shared an identical 6-6 record.
Senior Julias Hendricks led the scoring attack for Becker with 20 points.
Becker scoring: Ryan Bengtson 2, Landon Peterson 3, Alex Weiss 8, Zach Bengtson 3, Julias Hendricks 20, Josh Groskreutz 4, Mitchell Soltau 4, Sawyer Brown 9.
Tigers
Tuesday night, Becker traveled to Princeton for a game that was moved up to a 5:30 start time to try and beat the impending weather. Unfortunately for the Bulldogs, the conference champion Tigers were on top of their game and cruised to a 85-58 win to up their M8 record to 12-1 with one conference game remaining on the schedule.
Princeton built a 41-22 lead half-way through the first half and then led 53-29 going into halftime.
The Tigers have a formidable half court offense with a inside game, and they also used a pesky full court defense to thwart the Bulldogs’ attempts to get into an offensive rhythm.
Sawyer Brown was a bright spot for Becker in the first half, scoring 10 points.
In the second stanza, Princeton was able to push the game to running time (a 35 point lead with eight or fewer minutes remaining) by taking a 78-43 lead with 7:37 on the clock.
Becker scoring: Landon Peterson 2, Alex Weiss 6, Kevin Vogl 8, Zach Bengtson 2, Kyle Vogl 11, Sawyer Brown 10, Julias Hendricks 10, Nathan Weiss 2, Josh Groskreutz 2, Mitchell Soltau 5.
The playoffs loom in the near future for the Bulldogs who have three home games remaining on the schedule, including a Thursday night clash with St. Francis, followed by a Monday night matchup with Rocori and another home game for the regular season finale against Milaca on March 2.
