DANVILLE — The Schlarman Hilltoppers and coach Pat Kelly are still in the process of building their program back up to the success they’ve had in the past.

After finishing the season with one win two years ago, they are slowly getting back to the point where they feel they can compete for a conference title. After Monday night’s opening performance in the 43rd Annual Topper Classic, the Toppers have shown that they are making strides towards that goal as they defeated the Oakwood Comets 61-31.

Kelly knew that Oakwood lost a lot of key players from last year’s squad but they still had players that could hurt them if they didn’t play tough defense.

The Toppers jumped out on top early as they led the Comets 14-8 at the end of the first quarter and then 25-15 at half time. They would then put up 20 points in the third quarter to take a 45-23 third quarter lead.

“We knew we were going to have to come out and do battle,” said Kelly. “We’ve had two good weeks of practice to get ready and we feel we’re more rounded this year.”

Although Kelly thought that it wasn’t a perfect performance, he still liked the way they played.

“The effort was good and the defensive rebounding was excellent,” said Kelly. “We were able to get out and run and make easy baskets.”

This is a good step for the Toppers to not only start off the season with a win, but to also start off their own tournament with a win.

Kelly knows that the competition they still have to face won’t get any easier.

“It helps put in that positive mindset right away,” said Kelly.

The Comets took an early blow when junior forward Joe Garrett’s went down with an eye injury in the first quarter. With Garrett’s brother John already out with an ankle injury suffered during football season that forced Oakwood coach Jesse Johnson to go to his inexperienced bench even earlier and longer than anticipated.

With the two post players out, that forced more minutes out of junior Adam Cundiff and sophomores Cameron Lee and Cody Watson.

However, the three of them combined for only eight points. That is something that Coach Johnson says that his players are going to need to pick up on as the season progresses.

“We’re just physically not there,” said Johnson. “We can’t run with them yet and those older, more experienced teams know what it’s like going fast all the time.”

This inexperience is something that Johnson has been aware of for a couple of years now, so he knows what his squad is going to have to do to improve.

“We have to start building the pyramid from the first block,” said Johnson. “If we try and do too much, too soon then it’s all going to crash and we’ll have nothing to build off of.

The Toppers were led in scoring by junior Heath Goodwin who put up a game-high 15 points. Senior Michael Bateman threw in 13 of his own. Kelly said that Bateman has really stepped up his game.

“We’ve known he’s had some skills and he plays well,” said Kelly. “His energy really helped us out a lot.”

Casey Fletcher was the only Comet player in double figures with 11 points.

In the evening’s first matchup, only two points separated the Bismarck-Henning Blue Devils from the Paris Tigers at halftime.

The Tigers outscored the Blue Devils 19-8 in the third quarter en route to a 57-38 victory.

Paris’ Zach Henn led all scorers with 24. Dalten Temples finished with 17.

Bismarck-Henning was led by Stephen Krout with 14 points, including three 3-pointers.

Champaign St. Thomas More won the closest game of the night, holding off Chrisman 54-40.

The Sabers were led in scoring by Jason Herzog with 13, while Nate Freeman added 11.

Chrisman’s Cody Owen would lead all scorers with 14 and the Cardinals got 10 out of Shane Anderson.

The Topper Classic continues tonight with Paris (1-0) playing Oakwood at 5 p.m. Following that game will be Chrisman (0-1) against Bismarck-Henning (0-1) at 6:30 and Schlarman (1-0) faces St. Thomas More (1-0) at 8.