Perry’s youthful roster needed time on the court to adjust this season. The Pirates started strong and adapted Jan. 17 against Madison. They raced to a double-digit lead through the first quarter. But when Madison adjusted defensively, the Pirates reacted and made changes to the offense en route t o a 60-43 victory. Perry improves to 4-8 while Madison falls to the same mark. Kaden Brewster was 3-for-4 from beyond the arc in the opening three minutes, accounting for the Pirates’ first nine points. The junior has been a strong shooter in his first two years in the starting lineup, but he never had as strong a start as he did against the Blue Streaks. “It’s nice when I score, but there are also other guys on this team that can score,” Brewster said. “If I’m not shooting, I can drive and then kick it to them, and they can re-drive and score on their own.” Perry forced eight turnovers in the first quarter, which led to players including Carter Hopkins, Andrew Morris and Nick Gustin to create in transition and off drives. Coach Al Iacofano has wanted his team to create more scoring diversity, with one end of the court leading into the other. “Kaden is huge for us offensively. I thought our defensive engagement from all five guys was really good from the start,” Iacofano said. “It kind of set the tone for the game. The guys coming off the bench, we played nine guys pretty consistently in the first half and pretty consistently in the second. They didn’t let up and they closed out quarters for us.” Madison started the second quarter fast with a 3-pointer from Luke Williams on its opening possession and a Mason Nusker layup off of an offensive rebound. Brewster added another 3-pointer, but through the first five minutes of the quarter, the Pirates only mustered five points. A large part of the challenge was Madison using a three-quarters court press and preventing Perry from getting set up in the half-court, needing to move the ball around to get the offense going. Iacofano knew that his offense would adjust. They just needed to get used to a slower tempo coming off a game with Hawken, which also likes to play quickly in the offensive half of the court. “I think we were rushing a little bit there in the first half against the pressure,” Iacofano said. “We’d break it and we turned it over a little bit too much in the second. And then when we didn’t turn it over, we rushed a couple of possessions. I thought we were more patient and got a lot of shots at the rim in the second half.” Andrew Morris and Matthew Schlifke traded layups at the end of the third, and Perry kept the lead in double digits entering the final frame. Nate Trefzger had a block that led to a layup on the other end, Chase Sivon had a steal and dish to Brewster in transition, and the junior added two more 3-pointers. Brewser finished with 25 points while Andrew Morris had 10 and seven other Pirates were in the scorebook. Sivon and Hopkins added 15 combined rebounds, with the latter adding four assists. “We aren’t the tallest team, so whenever we can get those second-chance looks it helps,” Brewster said. “We need to get buckets. Everyone on the team can score and we know it. We just need to stay the course and win games.” Madison chipped away at a 17-point deficit in the second quarter when it switched to its press defense. Coach Taylor Williams liked that spurt from his team. But he added there is work to be done to have that stretch to a full game. “We have to start games faster,” Williams said. “The first quarter buried us being down by 17 in a game we ended up losing by that deficit. We’ve just got to do a better job of turning teams over, getting those transition buckets. We missed a few around the rim and to Perry’s credit, they did a good job of speeding us up with the ball pressure.” Madison was led by Schlifke, who had 11 off the bench. Madison returns to CVC Lake play with a trip to Conneaut Jan. 20. Perry travels to Crestwood the same day. The score Perry 60, Madison 43 ...read more read less