MANLIUS – The Bureau Valley Storm raced out to a fast start Friday at the Storm Cellar, taking a 10-2 lead over visiting Kewanee in the first five minutes of the game.

The Boilermakers weathered the Storm and outscored Bureau Valley 10-2 the rest of the first quarter and 24-6 over the second quarter on the way to a 62-50 win in Three Rivers Conference East Division play.

“I don’t believe in moral victories, but I do believe the journey is more important than the destination. And I thought we made progress, especially on the defensive end,” BV coach Jason Marquis said.

“We’ve been struggling to find an identity and we’ve done nothing but defense for a few days. Put that on me. My fault for not working on our offense since the last game. But I’m proud of our kids for an improved defensive effort. I hope we get better offensively, too, but if we do nothing else this year, we’ll get better defensively.”

The Storm and junior guard Bryce Helms came out red hot to start the game. Helms buried two straight 3-pointers, and Jordan Hulsing scored in the post to put the Storm up 10-2 at the 3:21 mark.

After tying the game at 12 at the end of the first quarter, the Boilermakers began to burn on full power in the second quarter.

Kewanee opened the second quarter on a 9-0 run and closed it on an 8-0 run to double up the Storm at 36-18 at the half. Brady Clark (6 of 6 free throws) and Blaise Lewis (two 3-pointers) each scored 10 points for Kewanee in the second quarter.

Kewanee coach Matt Clark said the Boilermakers (7-5, 1-2) came out a little flat coming off a tough defeat Tuesday to Princeton.

“Coming off the Princeton game, that was a great team, great performance by them, we were a little bit sluggish to start,” he said. “And sometimes, kids look at records and think, ‘It’s going to be an easy one.’ We play Bureau Valley and Jason Marquis teams every year and nothing is easy. And they battle nonstop.

“Once we started playing offense with some more ball movement and player movement, it opened some things up. We took a few early timeouts, which I usually don’t do. We came out after that first quarter and locked in a little more defensively and had a little bit more ball pressure, little more trapping. We turned them over a little bit and got some runouts and that really helps your offense.”

Marquis said the Storm just let it get away from them in the second quarter. They outscored the Boilermakers 44-26 in the other three quarters.

“I thought we were better tonight. If somebody’s in the stands watching us and reads that, ‘My gosh, I counted 27 turnovers.’ And we did have 27 turnovers. We have to execute some things better,” he said. “We have to be more disciplined to not give up 28 points in a quarter. But I told the boys, they gave up 12 in the first, 12 in the third, 12 in the fourth and 28 in the second.

“We have to shore that up. It comes from the mental toughness when you’re tired and still executing. It comes from leadership and recognizing when we’re in a skid to stop it at an 8-0 run instead of a 15-3 run.”

Jordan Hulsing had 12 points and Bryce Helms 10 for the Storm.

Brady Clark had 19 points for his dad’s Boilers with Lewis adding 16 and Catrelle Reed 11.

“We’re a young team. We play three juniors and two sophomores a lot of times. We’re working through some growing pains, but we’re in January. Those excuses are over,” Matt Clark said. “We need to start playing some better basketball. We’ve played some good competition. There’s some games ahead of us we think we can compete in.”

Notes: The two teams will meet again when Kewanee hosts Bureau Valley on Feb. 3. ... The Storm will return to action at the Rock Falls Shootout on Saturday against Reed-Custer. ... Kewanee also swept the freshmen and sophomore prelims.