Republished from the Columbia Missourian

Photo by Rachel English

COLUMBIA — Alex Ofodile is tired of losing to Hickman.

The Rock Bridge sophomore hauled in big receptions in the Bruins’ two football games against Hickman in 2012, but the Kewpies came out on top in each contest, ending a three-game winning streak in the series for Rock Bridge.

On Tuesday night, Ofodile watched another Bruins streak fall as Hickman defeated Rock Bridge in boys basketball for the first time in 24 games, according to Bruins coach Jim Scanlon.

“(I’m) pretty sick of it,” Ofodile said about the losses to the Kewpies. “It’s a bad feeling, but I’ll get ’em back sometime.”

Despite seeing significant playing time so far for the 2-2 Bruins, the 6-foot-3 forward rode the bench for the 55-48 Hickman victory. Scanlon said the Bruins’ short rotation was a result of a lack of production by inside players.

“We had to kind of go all guards,” Scanlon said. “We just weren’t getting anything (inside). And it wasn’t helping us defensively. … Right now we can’t get any inside game. We had to go about five, six guys and they just ran out of gas because we just weren’t getting anything out of anybody else.”

The loss was the first against Hickman for the Rock Bridge boys basketball program since 2004. Scanlon said ending the streak didn’t bother him too much.

“They had some big shots,” he said. “It was probably closer than the score indicated, but they pulled away at the end, and we just gotta get better in situations like this.”

Sophomore Ryan Kreklow led the Bruins with 18 points, seemingly unfazed by the sellout Hickman crowd’s chants of “In his shadow,” referring to Kreklow’s older brother, Ricky Kreklow, a former Rock Bridge standout and MU player.

The game was the first for Hickman in its new, larger gym. Rock Bridge is planning to break in a new practice gym of its own on Monday, which should come in handy as the Bruins look to improve for their game Saturday against Shawnee Mission East.

“We just gotta get better,” Scanlon said. “And we did, but we gotta get better yet.”

Original: http://www.columbiamissourian.com/a/156844/rock-bridge-boys-basketball-loss-reminiscent-of-football-teams-struggles/ (with paywall)