More than one boys basketball coach around Johnson County talked about Indian Creek as a potentially dangerous team coming into the season.
The Braves looked the part in their opener.
Five different players scored in double figures for Indian Creek, which busted a close game open with a 21-2 run and coasted to a 69-48 victory over county rival Franklin on Tuesday night.
Ethan Williams scored 17 points to pace the Braves, who also got 12 points from Mason Britt, 11 each from Christian Wiseman and Ethan Garriott and 10 from Gavin Hillenburg.
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"Our team chemisty was amazing tonight," Williams said. "We just blended together, and overall I think we just deserved to come out on top. Our chemistry was good and we played hard."
A tight first quarter featured five lead changes, and the Grizzly Cubs were still within a bucket at 17-15 when Carson Hunter opened the second period with a deuce. But the Braves scored the next eight points, and after Hunter snapped that string with a steal and layup at the 4:20 mark, they finished out the half with another 10 in a row. The back-breaking sequence came when Williams knocked down a 3-pointer and then Britt followed up a steal with another 3, stretching the Indian Creek lead to 33-17 with 1:29 left.
Williams hit another 3 to make it 38-17 early in the third before Franklin scored the next seven points to slow the momentum. But Indian Creek again took over at the end of the quarter, with Wiseman and Garriott combining for nine straight points to give the home team its largest lead, 51-29, going into the fourth.
The Braves were able to maintain a comfortable cushion regardless of who was on the court.
"I was happy with our effort," Indian Creek coach Drew Glentzer said. "I got to play a lot of people. Bryce Armstrong and Aidan Neathery and Ethan Garriott, that was their first time playing (varsity) minutes, so I was happy to see them kind of contribute in a big way. I thought our bench was great."
Franklin, which didn’t help its cause by going 5 of 15 from the line (including nine straight misses), got no closer than 17 in the fourth quarter.
Hunter led the Grizzly Cubs with 16 points, followed by Max Lancer with 10 and John Shepard with eight.
The convincing win should serve as an early-season confidence booster for the Braves, who travel to face Edinburgh on Saturday.
"It really gives us a good kickstarter, because the game against Franklin last year was a well-fought game but we ended up losing that one," Williams said. "But coming out and beating them like this felt really good."
