It’s getting close to crunch time in basketball around the state of Mississippi and East Webster’s boys and girls basketball teams continue to rack up the wins.
Both teams put together another perfect week with two wins over J.Z. George and Houlka to move to a combined 13-0 in 2021. The boys squad is now 13-4 on the year with six-straight wins while the girls moved to 14-3 and have won nine-consecutive games.
Along the way the last few weeks, the boys have been more challenged, however.
“The boys have had a little harder road. J.Z. only lost a couple of guys off of that squad that was really good last year and they had all their players against us for the first time. The game was never in doubt, but they made it interesting and they can be scary in the tournament,” Ginn said. “We weren’t really locked in for the first half against Houlka but we played a solid second half and executed down the stretch. If we can take that momentum into this week, I like where we are.”
In that 60-48 win over Houlka, it took a strong close for East Webster to put the visitors away. EWHS had a 29-22 lead at the end of the first quarter and that game was knotted up at 41 as the teams went to the fourth.
That final frame was win the Wolverines turned up the defensive pressure and started finishing on the offensive end with regularity as they outscored Houlka 19-7 in the final stanza for the 60-48 victory to stay undefeated in 2021.
EWHS shot 46% from the field and had a huge game from senior Reid Gatlin as he threw in 28 points on 11-of-19 shooting and hit 4-of-10 from3-point range. Cael Chrismond nearly landed a triple double in the game as he had 10 points, 11 assists and nine rebounds in the victory.
Earlier in the week, the Wolverines capped a perfect district record with a 67-57 win over J.Z. George as they led 14-8 after the first quarter and never let the game get too much in double. The second half was square as the Jaguars never went away but EWHS had built a 10-point lead in the first half that would be enough to stand.
EWHS’ key was getting to the free throw line where they hit22 shots, but they also missed 15 as they shot an incredible 37 free throws.The Wolverines also had 20 turnovers in the game that they had to overcome.
Chrismond had 19 points to lead EWHS while Hayes Fason finished with 12 points, Gatlin had 13 points and Chandler Hodges had eight points and 15 rebounds.
There were no challenges for the Lady Wolverines in the week as they ran through their two opponents by a combined score of 122-36 to also stay unbeaten in the new year.
J.Z. George was first earlier in the week and the Lady Wolverines didn’t give up a single point in the second or third quarters as they built out a 50-10 lead. EWHS forced 33 turnovers and held J.Z. George to14 percent shooting.
Whitney Winter scored 19 points in just 12 minutes while Shan Culpepper had 10 points in the game.
In the second game of the week against Houlka, EWHS led47-16 at the half and ran away with an easy 67-26 win. Meri-Grace Gregg finished with 15 points and hit five 3-pointers in the victory while Shan Culpepper had 13 points.
Whitney Winter had 12 points in the win, but she hit a major milestone by scoring her 1,000th career point in the game. In the last three games, Winter is averaging over 18 points a game despite playing limited minutes and Ginn believes she’s playing her best basketball down the stretch of her senior season.
“It’s a great milestone. I don’t know anybody that wouldn’t be excited or proud about that,” Ginn said of the 1,000 points. “For her to accomplish that speaks well for us because it lets people know they’ve got to guard us.”
Both teams finished out the regular season on Tuesday night with a big showdown on the road at Houston against two tough Hilltopper teams .Following this week, EWHS will head to J.Z. George next week and go into the Class2A, Region 2 tournament as the No. 1 seeds.
