Junior guard Brandon Burke scored a varsity career-high 23 points and scored on a put-back and pair of free throws in the final minute as his Byron-Bergen boys basketball squad held off a late rally to defeat Barker 53-42 in their home opener.
The Bees offense and defense were running on all cylinders in the first half as they built a 14-5 first quarter lead as Burke scored six points and Ryan Richardson added four.
Burke hit three three-pointers and an angled bank-shot in the second quarter with Colin Noeth and Rider Farnsworth adding field goals as Byron-Bergen had a convincing 29-12 halftime advantage.
They built that lead to 20 points early in the third quarter, but managed only four more points on baskets from Chase Felton and Noeth in the stanza as their offense got out of sync.
Noeth put them back up 39-23 early in the fourth quarter, but Barker went on an 18-5 run to cut the Bees lead to just three points with two minutes remaining.
Felton hit a huge trey from the right corner and Noeth hit on a drive to push the lead back to eight points before Burke sealed the game with a put-back after collecting the rebound off the missed front end of a one-and-one situation.
In addition to Burke’s career-high 23 points, Noeth added 12 points and Farns-worth nine points for the 2-1 Bees.
