The Centralia boys were able to give their bench players plenty of minutes Tuesday night.

The Panthers put its home game out of reach of Fayette, leading 42-14 at halftime prior to winning 68-31 for their second win in as many nights.

Head coach Scott Humphrey called Centralia’s 62-58 home victory Monday night against Boonville its “most complete game all year” and were able to have another such performance against Fayette (4-8). The Panthers (7-6) took advantage of Fayette being without two of its starters and took a 31-4 lead in the first half, following a 26-0 run that was broken up around the 6:30 mark in the second quarter.

“The biggest thing we talk about is consistency,” Humphrey said. “We played probably our most complete game last night, and I thought that carried over into tonight. Fayette had some key guys out, so we saw the opportunity to get off to a fast start.

“We shot free throws well last night, and I thought we shot them fairly well tonight. We took care of the ball last night, and I thought we took care of the ball tonight. We played good solid defense and executed in the half court when we needed to so kind of all facets of the game.”

Humphrey said Centralia hasn’t played like that in the first week back from Christmas break as the Panthers had a tough 58-54 overtime loss Jan. 3 at Bowling Green — where they were ahead by three points with three seconds left — and were outscored 26-8 in the second quarter on Jan. 6 in a 71-60 loss at Russellville. Humphrey said the lessons learned from those losses helped the Panthers in their back-to-back wins at home.

Logan Rosenfelder had the hot hand early, which Humphrey said hasn’t happened for one of the team’s best scorers recently. Rosenfelder scored a game-high 19 points and hit four 3-pointers — 15 of those points and all of the 3-pointers in the first quarter. Cullen Bennett followed with 11 points, Boen Zimmerman had eight points and seven rebounds, and Jack Romine finished with eight points.

“Logan struggled the last couple games to shoot the basketball,” Humphrey said. “I was really pleased to see him shoot the ball the way he did.”

Centralia took a 13-4 lead five minutes into the game as Rosenfelder knocked down two shots from deep. The Panthers defense trapped the Falcons when they could and took away the ball 14 times in the game.

Going into the second quarter, Centralia led 25-4, which grew bigger after Romine flew by Fayette in transition for a 3-point play. Rosenfelder added another bucket in transition for Centralia prior to Melo Hockaday running through the lane for a layup to end the Falcons’ drought.

Fayette played a more competitive second half, as Centralia outscored them 19-13 in the third quarter, but the game was pretty much decided by that point. Kaleb Friebe and Payton Oeth scored most of their combined 18 points in the third quarter. Malakai Graves led the Falcons with 10 points and seven rebounds.

In its recent stretch of tight games, Centralia was able to give its seniors on the bench sufficient playing time near the end of each half. With around four minutes left in the second quarter and in the fourth quarter, Landon Moss, Tanner Dutton, Mason Presley, Austin Orth and Benji Chick were the pack on the floor.

The five combined for 16 points, giving their teammates on the bench and classmates in the student section plenty to cheer about. The two areas erupted after Moss knocked down each of his two 3-pointers. Humphrey said it was nice to see those players have some moments considering their meaning to the team.

“Those guys come to practice every day, they work their tails off for me, and they know their role on the team and buy into it,” Humphrey said. “Everybody is part of this team, and nobody is bigger than the other. I was super pleased to give them some earned minutes tonight.”

Centralia (1-0 CCC) played at Clarence Cannon Conference foe Palmyra (10-4), who received votes in the most recent state Class 3 poll, on Friday before hosting Marceline (0-11) the next Friday.