The Seneca Fighting Irish boys basketball team snapped a four-game losing streak with a 45-37 victory over the St. Bede Bruins in a Tri-County Conference game Tuesday night at Abbot Vincent Gymnasium in Peru.

Seneca dominated the first quarter and got off to a 10-2 lead thanks to a 3-pointer and a pair of jump shots by senior forward Brady Sheedy and strong defense. Senior forward Brayden Simek also added a corner 3-pointer. The Bruins struggled to make layups and senior guard Jose De La Torre was unable to take advantage of a pair of free-throw attempts.

The Bruins managed to pick up the pace in the second quarter with a 3 by junior guard Alec Tomsha and two layups and successful free-throws by senior forward Gino Ferrari. However, Seneca junior guard Jesus Govea answered with nine of Seneca’s 14 points in the second quarter, which included a corner 3.

The Fighting Irish led 24-14 at the half and both teams went on to score seven points in a defensive battle in the third quarter, allowing the Fighting Irish to hold a 31-21 advantage heading into the fourth.

The Bruins scored 16 points in the fourth quarter, which included Geno Dinges – St. Bede’s leading scorer this season – tossing in four of his six points in the quarter, and a pair of 3-pointers by Tomsha and Ferrari, whose 3 made the score 41-35 with less than a minute to play. The Fighting Irish fought back on offense with senior center Zeb Maxwell scoring on a layup off an assist from Simek.

The Fighting Irish’s defense held off the comeback attempt by the Bruins to win 45- 37.

Seneca head coach Nathaniel Meiss believed the defense’s ability to consistently take the ball from the Bruins was the key for Seneca’s victory, despite 21 turnovers committed on offense.

“I thought we did a really nice job defensively,” Meiss said. “We fought hard. I thought we followed our plan on the defensive end of the floor and we made timely shots. We turned the ball over a lot, but we found a way to overcome that and finish.”

Meiss also believes that picking up a conference win on the road is important for the team to regain its confidence moving forward.

“It’s a tough environment here, and to pick up a win moving forward getting us going into the weekend and then on to Christmas. Hopefully, we can gain some momentum.”

The win improved Seneca’s record to 3-4 on the season and 1-1 in the conference.

Sheedy finished the night as the Fighting Irish’s leading scorer with 13 points.

“We were really motivated coming into tonight,” Sheedy said. “We’re coming off a four-game losing streak. We knew we needed it, we have lost a few that we don’t think we should have. I really wanted to get this one. I feel like in some of our most recent games, we have started off strong and we haven’t been able to finish games. So I feel like if we can get that down we can be a pretty good team.”

The loss was St. Bede’s second in a row after a 64-63 loss against Galva on Saturday. With the loss, the Bruins fell to 5-5 on the season and 1-1 in the conference.

St. Bede head coach Brian Hanson believed the Bruins’ defense was good enough to win but their offense committing 30 turnovers put them in a hole.

“We played defense well enough to win a game tonight. We just couldn’t execute offensively,” Hanson said. “We’ve got to set screens better, getting the ball in the right spot and time. So we struggled and we had no offensive flow.”

Hanson has been pleased with the Bruins’ late game pushes, but he believes that their slow starts have led to losses so far this season.

“They’re going to fight until the end, always,” Hanson said. “They’re always going to battle. We love that about them. I just told them that they can’t wait for so long. We’ve made some good pushes towards the end. We’ve just got to get out of the gates better.”

The Bruins were led in scoring by Ferrari and senior guard Gus Burr with 12 and eight points, respectively.