Monday morning was supposed to be a travel day for East Webster on the way to the “Big House” in Jackson for the Class 2A basketball semifinals.
Jon Ginn felt like his team was prepared coming into the matchup against New Sit in the quarterfinals and the Wolverine faithful packed the Cumberdome looking to push the team on to the semis. In the end, it wasn’t meant to be.
After a strong defensive first half, the Lady Wolverines left some point on the board in the second by missing free throws. A program like New Site that has been to the big games and won them over the years took full advantage and would take away the game with a 43-38 victory.
“Our girls found a new gear the last month and in particular the last two and a half or three weeks from the division tournament on as far as being gritty and tough. They came into that game with the same fire and belief,” Ginn said. “I felt like early in the game with New Site we had them rattled. The second half they made it really difficult to get inside and we didn’t hit shots and missed free throws.”
It was a frustrating defeat for the Lady Wolverines after putting together a great defensive performance against a disciplined and talented New Site team. The Lady Royals managed to score just seven points in the first quarter and the Lady Wolverines led 22-20 at the half.
But free throws and 3-pointers shot EWHS out of the game. The team shot 12-of-28 in a narrow win over Pine Grove in the second round and made just 1-of-12 in this game and the Lady Wolverines managed to make just 1-of-10 3-pointers. New Site would hit 12-of 17 free throws themselves and they would get the lead in the third quarter to grab the win.
In her final game with the team, Shan Culpepper had 13 points on 6-of-10 shooting and added seven rebounds. Shameriah Culpepper finished with 12 points on 6-of-12, Da’nasia Logan had 11 points and senior Lauren Graves had six assists. It was especially tough for Ginn to see his seniors Shan Culpepper and Graves go out without getting a chance to go to Jackson.
“It hurt. It hurt all weekend,” Ginn said. “If there’s two girls that deserved to go down and experience the state tournament, it’s those two. Looking at the path that we had, I felt like we would have been playing for a championship. New Site beat us twice last year bad so the chance to make things right and beat them on our home court was a storybook ready to be written. I couldn’t be more proud than those two.
Replacing the presence in the post from Shan Culpepper will be tough next season. Shan averaged 14.4 points and 8.4 rebounds a game this season and Graves had a team-high 4.8 assists a game. But Shameriah Culpepper returns down low for another year and Da’nasia Logan had a huge jump this season to become one of the stars of the team.
Along with other players coming back and expected to improve, Ginn believes that his team can make another run at it next season. This year’s squad was on the cusp of getting back to the Final Four for the first time in five years and it corralled the first Class 2A, Region 4 tournament title since that time as well.
“The foundation is there to have another good year. I told them in our final meeting as a team to remember the feeling of how exhilarating the last three weeks were and seeing our student body show up. The gym was as full as I’ve seen it in five years. I told them to remember that feeling. I also told them to remember the feeling of coming up short and the tears in the locker room and how bad it hurt,” Ginn said. “I just challenged them that it would be a lot of hard work. The foundation is there to try to make another run at it.”
