ALBANY — The Comets have already equaled their win total from a season ago at two after a 67-47 win over Pecatonica Dec. 17. The Vikings now have two wins in the Six Rivers East, one more than last year.

“I thought our energy was a lot better,” Albany coach Derek Allen said. “I thought unlike prior years, we’ve got 9, 10, 11 guys we can go to, which can be good. What I think is the best motivator in sports is the bench, and that’s something we can use this year if we’ve got guys that can step up off the bench, I think it raised the level of everybody.”

The home team opened the game on a 17-6 run over the course of the first 10 minutes, and went into halftime with a 30-20 lead.

“It was rebounding. It was their size vs. our lack of size and then exploiting something they could exploit,” Pecatonica coach Matt Fink said. “They went to where they had to go to — we missed some box-outs, we missed some opportunities to limit them to one possession, and they made us pay for it, so credit to them. They also made some timely 3s.”

The Vikings played without all-conference guard Hunter Enloe, and were forced to dig deep into their bench to log minutes, and Albany took advantage. 

“Not having Hunter is a tough one. He’s our all-conference returner from last year as a sophomore and our best scorer and one of our most athletic kids. It hurt probably a little bit more because we didn’t know about it until today, so we didn’t have a day to prepare for it or anything in practice,” Fink said. 

To fill the scoring gap, Pecatonica’s David Tisch and Kegun Brunker almost singlehandedly carried the team. Tisch had 9 of his 15 points in the half, and Brunker added 8 of his 17. The rest of the Vikings combined for just three points.

“Kegun is an extremely athletic kid — I would call him really raw athletically. He’s a leaper and he’s the fasted kid on the floor and he gives us a lot of advantages in transition and the post,” Fink said. “David’s just a competitor. David always has been a head-down, hard-nosed kid. He had a nice little spurt there in the first half that kept us in the game.”

Albany, meanwhile, had six different players score in the first 18 minutes, even with big man Rob Schroeder scoreless and sitting much of the half with foul trouble. That didn’t stop Allen from second guessing his own leadership in the half.

“I can’t say I’m entirely pleased with how we coached. I thought in the first half we made a lot of mistakes,” Allen said. “We won two games last year, so we’ll take them where we can get them this year.”

Meanwhile, senior forward Clay Hulbert scored 13 of his game-high 27 points in the first half.

“That’s what you hope to see from a senior. He’s been like that all year. He guards the other team’s best player and he gets the most attention from the other team,” Allen said. “He was just a force down low today and kind of held it all together for us, thankfully.”

The Comets were even stronger on offense in the second half, outscoring Pecatonica 37-27 over the final 18 minutes. Ethan Koss scored 9 points for Albany, while Andy Gertsch and Ben Grosz each had 8. In all eight Comets scored in the contest. Albany also knocked down seven 3-pointers and were 14 of 22 from the line. 

“When shots are going in it helps build your confidence. It was quite timely, and it gave us a little bit of space in the second half,” Allen said.

Brunker led Pecatonica with 17 points and Tisch had 15. The Vikings hit just two 3s and were just 8 of 24 from the charity stripe. 

“We just need more time — we need more gym time, more practice time. I think a lot of these things are fixable, and I think we can fix them,” Fink said.

Two days later, Albany lost to Highland 68-58 in a Six Rivers crossover.