MANKATO — They kept coming and coming.
Ganden Gosch, Manaow Omot, Dwayne Bryant, Brogan Madson and Carson Schweim. Off the bench came Lucas Gustafson, Amari Nobles and Dwuan Reliford.
The Mankato East boys basketball team flexed its depth — and talent — Thursday night, overwhelming Mankato West in the first half of an 80-68 victory in a Big Nine Conference game at the East gym.
“We always want to get off to a fast start,” Schweim said. “That first half, we were really good.”
West missed its first six shots, but early turnovers prevented East from getting too far ahead.
But soon, the Cougars started to heat up. Schweim hit a 3-pointer and Reliford made two, and soon the East lead was 28-13 with nine minutes remaining.
The lead was 35-18 before Schweim made three straight layups to highlight an 11-0 run. All eight of the Cougars that played in the first half scored at least one basket.
“There’s no doubt, we have a lot of guys that can play,” East coach Joe Madson said. “We were moving the ball, getting up and down the court. Defensively, we were stifling. “We’re not 23 points in a half better than them, but they didn’t play as well as they could. And we’re better than we played in the second half.”
The Scarlets had only seven field goals and 10 turnovers in the first half, but Kyle Steinke’s bank shot from the opposite free-throw line just before the halftime buzzer cut the lead to 46-23.
“We’ve had a few games where we’ve started like that,” West coach Jeremy Drexler said. “We have to figure something out to change that. I’m sure part of it was the moment; it was a great atmosphere, as always. But offensively, we still have some work to do.”
West’s best stretch came over the first five minutes of the second half. Taking advantage of a couple turnovers, West had a 15-5 run, with El Staley scoring six points.
But Gosch stopped the run with a 3-pointer that made it 58-40 with 13 minutes to play.
West switched to zone defense and closed the gap to 61-47 on Staley’s 3-pointer with 10 minutes to go, but East answered most of the runs and closed out the victory.
Schweim ended up with 23 points and 12 rebounds, while Gosch scored 11 points, one more than Nobles and Reliford.
Staley scored 19 points, with 14 in the second half. Steinke scored 16 and Landon Dimler had 11 points and seven rebounds.
“We’ve played some really good nonconference games, and we’re on a roll lately,” Schweim said.
East (12-1, 4-1 in Big Nine Conference) plays Saturday at Marshall. West (9-4, 2-2) is off until Jan. 19 at Rochester John Marshall.
Follow Chad Courrier on Twitter @ChadCourrier.