Eggemeyer’s 28 points lead Saxony past West County

The Saxony Lutheran Crusaders boys basketball team defeated the West County Bulldogs 59-41 on Wednesday at Saxony Lutheran High School. Luke Eggemeyer’s 28-point performance led the Crusaders with help from Owen Buchheit’s 11 points.

Saxony started the game with a John Hartmann three-pointer before the Bulldogs went on a 12-5 run to take a 12-9 first-quarter lead. The Crusaders began the second with a 5-0 run, forcing West County into a quick timeout.

Each team struggled to score until a flurry of offense from both in the last three minutes gave the Bulldogs a 24-23 lead after a buzzer-beater layup.

Crusaders head coach Justin Callahan said West County came to play in the first half and his team relied too much on outside shots.

“West County came out tonight ready to play. These guys made it to the quarterfinals and they lost to New Madrid one step away from the final four. Now they thought they lost a couple of kids from the team but when we watched film we saw that they can play well,” Callahan said. “In the first half that gave us everything we could handle and we were more relying just on jump shots and perimeter stuff that didn’t go in a whole lot.”

Saxony opened the third quarter on a 9-4 run with Eggemeyer scoring seven of those points, again forcing West County into an early timeout. Eggemeyer continued to take over scoring 13 in the quarter and highlighting with back-to-back slam dunks as the Crusaders led 44-28 after the third.

The fourth quarter saw the teams trade baskets but Saxony’s lead never got below 16 points as they cruised to their third victory in a row. Callahan said once they started going to Eggemeyer and Wes Kiehne in the middle, West County had no answer.

“We started emphasizing on going inside to Luke and Wes and once we started doing that they didn't have any answer,” Callahan said. “Once we started going back to our big guys in the middle opened up the offense.”

Saxony Lutheran will next travel to take on St. Paul Lutheran (Farmington) on Friday, tip-off is set for 7:30 p.m.