BELLEVILLE — The Cheesemakers opened the boys basketball season with an 11-point comeback win at Belleville Nov. 27. 

“That’s one heck of a basketball team over there,” Monroe coach Brian Bassett said of Belleville after his team’s 64-56 win. “We were happy to come out of here with a win, because this is an unbelievable team and they are not going to lose many games.”

Leading the way were seniors Carson Leuzinger and JT Seagreaves, who each scored 21 points. Seagreaves added four steals, seven rebounds, four blocks and a thunderous one-handed slam in the second half that energized the rally the Cheesemakers needed to take the lead. Leuzinger was a finished with a double-double, adding 10 rebounds, a steal and three assists, and finished 8-for-10 from the line.

Monroe scored the first bucket of the game on a Seagreaves basket in the post, and that lead held for less than two minutes. Belleville went on an 18-5 run over a 5-minute stretch to go up by 11. The Wildcats held an 11-point lead until the final 70 seconds of the half. Leuzinger scored four points to close out the first, and the Cheesemakers went into the locker room down 29-22.

“They pressure the heck out of people, and they want you to speed us. That’s what we did the first half. For a lot of our young guys, we had to get them their feet wet — it was their first time every playing in a varsity game, and the speed is just so much different. I think that was good for us,” Bassett said. 

Turnovers hampered Monroe through the first 18 minutes, but Bassett said his crew shook their first-game jitters as play continued. He also saw his two senior leaders step up, especially Seagreaves, who hustled for tips and steals all game, and helped facilitate the offense.

“He knows he’s an alpha. Now that he’s a senior, he knows that it’s his turn. He’s the X-factor, because there’s not many teams that have someone that’s 6-6, 225 that’s as strong as him and can jump like him,” Bassett said of Seagreaves, adding that the forward’s game continues to become more well-rounded. “He can dribble now without turning it over — which is huge. Freshman, sophomore, junior years, JT would never take more than two dribbles because something bad usually happens. He’s done a great job of progressing that way and finding guys when he’s going to the basket. I think he’s just so much more comfortable.”. 

Belleville’s Trevor Syse hit a 3-pointer to open the scoring in the second half, but Monroe answered right away when George Brukwicki buried a triple of his own, the start of a brief 7-0 Cheesemaker run. Monroe never trailed by more than two scores the rest of the game.

Monroe’s first lead of the second half came at the 9:06 mark when James Seagreaves found Keatin Sweeney for a triple to make it 37-36. Belleville briefly retook the lead, and held a 4-point advantage with 6:53 to play after another Syse triple.

The momentum swung for good on Monroe’s possession following Syse’s 3. That’s because Seagreaves took matters into his own hands, taking a quick dribble into the lane and rising high for a heavy one-handed slam, which brought the score to 43-41 Belleville.

“That was a play that he wouldn’t have made last year. I thought it was a great read going down the middle,” Bassett said. The coaches had talked with Seagreaves about attacking the middle more often. “He did and he got a wide-open dunk.”

Leuzinger scored on a drive to the hoop with 5:16 to play to even the score, then Brukwicki hit another 3 with 3:58 to play to put Monroe up for good. Seagreaves’ dunk started a 12-0 Monroe run that put the Cheesemakers up by 8 with 2:15 to play. Monroe continued to pour on the scoring, adding another 6 points over the next 75 seconds to take a 13-point advantage. In total, Monroe went on an 18-1 run over 5 ½ minutes of play.

“Shots weren’t falling, and I don’t think we were as aggressive as we needed to be,” Belleville coach TJ Zweifel said, as a flurry of missed 3s in the stretch aided Monroe’s surge. “We let their pack-it-in/man-to-man kind of get us out of rhythm, but I take ownership of that — that’s completely on me as a coach. We’ll get better from it.”

Belleville, which brought heavy defensive pressure on traps and a full-court press much of the night, received two 3s from Andrew Ace, and Syse hit a pair of free throws to bring the Wildcats back to within five, but Monroe closed it out at the line.

“I know what we have — we have a whole bunch of athletes that have a winning mentality. They bought into the culture that we have and they are not going to quit,” Zweifel said. “I thought we took it to Monroe early, and then once they started to click I think we learned to be a little bit more resilient, and that’s what I am going to take from it. They are a D2 school and we accepted the challenge. We wanted to play Monroe and we got exactly what they have to offer.”

Syse had 19 points for Belleville, while Carson Syse had 10, Anthony Nolden seven and Ace eight.

Brukwicki ended the night with eight points and six rebounds — all in the second half.

“We told him, when we had our meeting with him at the beginning of the year, We told him that we need you to shoot more 3s than pass attempts you had in football. That’s at least four attempts a game,” Bassett said. Brukwicki averaged 3.7 passing attempts per game in football this fall. “I think he did a really good job in the second half of catching and shooting it and not hesitating.”

Monroe was set to be back in action Nov. 30 at Milton, with the home opener set for Dec. 3 against Stoughton. Belleville was to travel to Deerfield Nov. 30 and host Mineral Point Dec. 2.

“We planned this right away when Belleville had an opening, because we’re going to play Milton, who will play like this, and Stoughton, who will play like this. DeForest (Dec. 10) will play like this, too. We’ve got an onslaught right away. We’ll just have to do the best we can,” Bassett said.

What makes it harder for Monroe is a couple of guards are out injured to open the season, and many of the players turned in their football equipment from a deep playoff run the first day of practice.

“It’s been over 20 years since we have gotten that far (in football). We gave them that extra day off, but George and Keatin were in there right away Monday morning at 6 a.m. ready to go. JT, we gave him a little bit of rest and didn’t let him do a whole lot that first week — let him sit out full court sprints to try to get his legs back,” Bassett said. “The last four year, probably 8 or 9 out of my top 10 were not football players, and now this year it’s the other way around.”