By CHARLIE HUST
The WCHS Trojans suffered a pair of defeats to district-rivals Union County and Henderson County last week and saw their record dip to (16-9).
Webster will complete is regular season schedule Thursday, traveling to Todd County Central. WC will tangle with Union County again next Tuesday in the opening roud of the Sixth District Tournament to be hosted by Webster County High School at 7 p.m. The winner will battle Henderson County in the 6th District championship game scheduled for Feb. 28 at WCHS.
Webster County 65
Union County 70
An impressive first quarter shooting display from the home-standing Braves set the tone for victory in the second meeting of the season for the district rivals.
The Braves hit four straight 3-pointers in the open 3:30 of the contest and raced out to a commanding 19-4 lead. They finished the quarter 5-of-5 from behind the 3-point arc. UCHS closed out the first quarter with a 23-9 lead.
“Give Union credit, they came out and shot the lights out in the first quarter,” noted WCHS head coach Jon Newton.
Trailing by 15 points at halftime, the Trojans mounted a furious comeback bid led by the hustling effort of Mason Roland. He scrapped his way to a team-high 23 points, 14 coming in the second half. Roland also added three rebounds, three assists and three steals. WC’s pressure defense forced six Union turnovers in the quarter and the Trojans capitalized both on driving buckets and at the free throw line. UCHS ended the game with 16 turnovers, compared to just five for Webster.
After three quarters of play, Webster had trimmed the lead to 54-44.
A pair of buckets from Max McMain in the early minutes of the fourth quarter sliced the Union County lead to just five points.
But 5-of-6 free throw shooting from Nick Chaykowski pushing the lead back to nine points with 4:31 to go. He led the Braves with 22 points.
The Trojans would not back down and after consecutive driving jumpers from Roland, the lead had been trimmed back to five points with 2:53 left in the game. That would be as close as the Trojans could get.
“We were never really in the game, Union was in complete control,” Newton stated.
The Braves held a slight 25-23 rebounding edge and shot 52 percent from the field. But all five of their 3-pointers came in the first eight minutes. Webster struggled with its shooting from the field, hitting 21-of-46 attempts from the field and an ice-cold 1-of-8 from behind the 3-point arc. The Trojans did excel at the free throw line, draining 22-of-27 attempts while the Braves were just 17-for-30.
Max McMain scored 11 points in the loss. Jon Stubblefield, J. D. Newton and Zac Shoulders all scored 10 points while Stubblefield added five rebounds and four from Shoulders. Cole Hazelwood, who led the WC jayvee team to victory with 15 points, added one point in the varsity game.
Webster County 49
Henderson County 68
A talented Colonel squad unleashed a long-range shooting attack to break open a close game and cruise to victory Saturday night in Dixon.
Henderson, which upped it record to 16-6 and an impressive 4-0 in district play, drained 12-of-22 3-pointers. Six of those ‘treys’ came in the decisive 33-10 run to close out the game after Webster had grabbed a 36-35 lead with 2:10 to go in the third quarter.
After back-to-back buckets from Zac Shoulders and J. D. Newton to make it 30-23 with 6:13 left in the third quarter, the Colonels began its comeback run. They out-scored WCHS 21-11 in the period and used another 24-11 run in the fourth quarter to grab control of the game.
“We were really passive and we weren’t getting the clean passes we were getting early in the game. We just went flat,” noted Coach Newton.
HC’s Brady Norman, who had a game-high 22 points, hit consecutive 3-pointers to put the Colonels on top for good 38-36. Bryce Crowley got into the act in the fourth quarter, nailing four long-range bombs to finish with 15 points.
The arch-rivals battled to a 16-16 tie at the first quarter break and then the Trojans went on a 11-7 run in the second quarter to earn a 27-23 lead at halftime. After a 3-pointer from Mason Roland, his final points of the game, to open the third quarter and the consecutive baskets from Shoulders and Newton, the wheels began to come off of the WCHS offense.
Roland finished with 11 points while Shoulders and Max McMain added 10 point apiece. Newton finished with nine points and four rebounds, along with four points each from Jake Fritz and Jon Stubblefield. Trevis Bell completed the scoring with one free throw.
The Trojans were 19-for-45 (42 percent) from the field and only 3-of-14 from behind the 3-point arc.
A big key in the game was Henderson’s dominance on the backboards with a hefty 33-16 rebounding edge.