There’s been one thing that has been eluding the East Webster Lady Wolverines over the last few years and that’s a district tournament championship.
Even last season, EWHS was able to win the regular season title and get the one seed, but the Lady Wolverines didn’t get to hoist a trophy and celebrate being district tournament champs with a one seed for the playoffs. The team is certainly playing like a team that has that in their sights heading into this week.
It’s tournament time for the Lady Wolverines as they head down the road to Ackerman and Choctaw County High School for the Class 2A, Region 4 tournament. The team doesn’t play until Thursday night when they meet the winner of Choctaw County and Eupora in a game that took place on Tuesday.
EWHS comes into the ball game hot after finishing off the last four games with wins and sitting at 18-7 with just one loss coming in Region 4 play against Calhoun City by four points. Most of the last few games have consisted of the Lady Wolverines building a huge lead in the first half and coasting in the second allowing younger players to get playing time and older players some rest.
“We’ve had games where we really could have blown some doors off but we’ve been able to play a lot of kids because we got a good start," coach Jon Ginn said. "Our defense has looked good, we’re sharing the ball well and we’re shooting well enough.”
That was the case again this week when hosting Houston and traveling to West Lowndes. The Lady Wolverines led 36-21 at halftime and finished things off in that game with a 62-45 win. It wasn’t a great shooting performance for the Lady Wolverines going 2-of-13 from 3-point range and 4-of-13 from the free throw line, but they scored 36 points off of turnovers and 46 points in the paint while pulling in 56 rebounds.
Shan Culpepper had a huge night with her 21 points and 13 rebounds. Shameriah Culpepper had 12 points, 12 rebounds and five steals and Da’nasia Logan 10 points, 11 steals, five assists and five rebounds.
A 54-30 West Lowndes win saw the Lady Wolverines come out and take a 20-4 lead after one quarter and the team led 52-19 after three. EWHS held West Lowndes to 29% from the field and scored 33 more points off of turnovers forcing 41 turns.
Logan had 12 points in that game with eight steals and six assists, Shameriah Culpepper had 11 points.
The Lady Wolverines now wait until Thursday night to find out their opponent and will play one of the area rivals at Ty Cobb Gymnasium in Ackerman at 7 p.m. EWHS will play the winner of JZ George and Bruce.
“We’ve got to come out and be focused going into that game," Ginn said of the semifinal matchup. "We want to come in and take care of our business and hopefully play some players again in the second half to rest up for the next game. But if we don't play well, we know that we can easily get beat."
Boys
A downward trend has continued for the Wolverine boys team over the last couple of weeks and EWHS is limping into the district tournament this week on a six-game losing streak. Since the Calhoun City win back on January 11, EWHS has yet to taste victory and only one of the six losses has been within single digits.
A lot of it has been the fact that the Wolverines have closed with a tougher schedule. This past week they hosted Houston and traveled to West Lowndes and neither game was a productive one in the win/loss column.
“We had a spot where we were playing good and then COVID hit and we had to sit 10 days. It feels like we haven’t been able to get back in the groove. We’ve got to find a way to put four good quarters together,” Ginn said.
On Tuesday night, EWHS had the Hilltoppers in town for what became a 78-59 loss after a promising start. EWHS led 16-15 after the first quarter but the next two quarters didn’t follow suit. Houston outscored the Wolverines 48-22 in the second and third and cruised to the win.
The Hilltoppers shot 48% from the field and hit eight 3-pointers in the win while forcing the Wolverines into 23 turnovers. Chandler Hodges was the only player in double figures for EWHS scoring 15 points on 6-of-15 shooting and 3-of-8 from 3-point range.
West Lowndes made things even tougher on Friday night jumping out to a 27-17 lead in the first quarter and 48-30 lead by the half. While the deficit stayed where it was going into the fourth, the Panthers blew it away in the fourth quarter allowing just nine points and scoring 27 on the way to a 90-54 blowout.
The Panthers shot 52% in the game to EWHS’ 32% and went 12-of-27 from 3-point land as the Wolverines were ice cold at 4-of-21. EWHS had 24 offensive rebounds and outrebounded WLHS 46-37, but it wasn’t enough to overcome 26 turnovers that were turned into 36 points by the Panthers.
Hodges led in scoring again with 13 points shooting 5-of-8 but just 2-of-7 from the free throw line and he had seven rebounds. Zy Ford and Hayes Fason each had 10 points but Fason was 2-of-10 from three. Omarion O’briant had 11 rebounds but just four points.
The losses dropped the Wolverines to 7-17 on the season and finishing with a 2-3 record in Region 4, they’ll play Calhoun City in the first game of the tournament at Choctaw County this week. It’s a Twilight Zone of a first round matchup between two teams that have grown accustomed to playing each other in the district championship and are now playing to see whose season will end in round one.
If the Wolverines won that ball game that took place on Tuesday night, they meet up with rival and host team CCHS on Thursday at 5:30 p.m.
“They were missing their best guard and we were missing one of our best guards so it won’t be the same as it was before,” Ginn said of the matchup with Calhoun City. “When we’ve struggled to defend and rebound, we’ve had a lot of trouble. If we can do that, we’ll have a shot at it. If we don’t, Tuesday night can be it for us."
