Dale Sands | Northern Stokes Youth Sports
West Stokes’ Alston Furr drives hard to the basket to score two points for the Wildcats in Friday night’s game. The Wildcats came up short against the Phoenix 54-44.
Dale Sands | Northern Stokes Youth Sports
West Stokes’ Makala Bozman leaps over the Prep defense to score two points for the Wildcats in Friday night’s game. Bozman went 13-15 on the free-throw line and was the top scorer in the game with 25 points. The Lady Wildcats defeated the Phoenix 40-37.
West Stokes’ perfect conference record was brought to an end last Friday night with a 54-44 loss to Winston-Salem Prep. The Wildcats are now in second place in standings with a record of 6-1 in the conference.
“Talent for talent, they are better,” Wildcats Coach Dan Spainhour said. “But talented teams don’t always win.”
Spainhour said that despite the loss, if the Wildcats execute better and cut down on turnovers, they have a chance to beat Prep later in the season.
Both Prep and West entered into the game last week with perfect conference records. Prep came out strong to lead 7-1 in the first moments of the game.
Wildcat Josh Spainhour sank a 3-pointer in the first quarter, which brought the score to 7-4. Reid Goodson followed up with a layup and a jumper, which helped the Wildcats lower their deficit to four points to round out the quarter 16-12.
In the second quarter, the Wildcats continued to work hard to even the score. Goodson put up two points with about four minutes left in the second. Spainhour made another 3-pointer. The Wildcats trailed 26-21.
The Wildcats were trailing by a mere five points at the start of the third quarter, but the Phoenix were determined not to have their perfect conference record tarnished. The Phoenix outscored the Wildcats 14-11 in the third quarter and coasted to an eight point lead (40-32).
In the final quarter, the Phoenix worked to keep lead. With some continued strong rebounding, Prep stayed ahead of West Stokes by a margin of about 10 points for most of the quarter and ended the game with a 54-44 win.
“Our problem tonight was turnovers and inability to score the ball,” Coach Spainhour said. “[Prep] is by far the best team in the conference and I think we can play we them.”
The top scorers for the Wildcats were Josh Spainhour (20 pts.), Reid Goodson (12 pts.) and Alston Furr (10 pts.).
Girls
Coming off a tough loss to South Stokes last week (44-42), the West Stokes varsity girls team came away with a narrow three-point victory over Prep in the final moments of the game. The final score of the varsity girls game was 40-37. The Lady Wildcats improved to 2-5 in the conference.
Lady Wildcats Coach James Holleman was all smiles after stomping the court in celebration in his signature blue alligator skin boots.
“We put up a good defense,” he said. “[Prep] didn’t know what we were running. The girls had a lot of enthusiasm tonight.”
Prep and West Stokes held each other off in the first few minutes of last Friday night’s game. Then Prep hit a gear and posted up 10 points to one West Stokes free throw in the first quarter. Lady Wildcats premier posters Makala Bozman and Chris Madigan had trouble breaking through for layups.
In the first minute of the second quarter, the Lady Wildcats were trailing 12-1. But then Bozman and Madigan started breaking through for some post shots. With 6:45 on the clock, Bozman drove in for a layup and grabbed two points for the team. After some free throws, she brought the score to 12-5.
With five minutes to go in the second, Bozman hit another layup and sank some more frees, which brought the score to 14-11. Madigan followed up with a layup with three minutes left in the quarter.
By halftime, the Lady Wildcats trailed by six points (21-15).
The Lady Wildcats continued working to even the score in the third. The team outscored Prep 12-10 with some strong post playing by Bozman. At the end of the third, Abby Harris hit a big trey from behind the arc that brought the score to 31-27.
In the fourth quarter, the Lady Wildcats trailed by only three points. Both teams turned up the defensive heat and held each other off from scoring in the first minutes of the quarter.
With fives minutes left to play, Harris made a quick, long pass down the court to Bozman, who stuck the ball in the goal and brought the sore to 31-29.
Bozman was fouled several times in the final quarter and her free throws helped the team to come ahead. She shot 13-15 on the charity stripe, many of which came from frees in the final quarter.
“She played great,” Coach Holleman said.
Overall the team shot 72 percent from the free-throw line (18-25). The Lady Wildcats crept by with the win 40-37.
The top scorers for the Wildcats were Makala Bozman (25 pts.) and Abby Harris (6 pts.).
Post a Comment
