Thanksgiving break brought some rest for a lot of teams across the area but not for East Webster basketball as Jon Ginn’s teams were busy competing for a couple of days at the Hickory Flat Tournament.
The girls squad especially got a good measuring stick of competition as they took on Nettleton and South Pontotoc and split games against the two teams.
The Lady Wolverines used a massive fourth quarter on both ends of the floor to rally against the Tigers of Nettleton and hand them a loss on Monday, 49-45. EWHS entered the fourth quarter down by 15 points but came from behind and outscored Nettleton 19-3 in the final frame for the win.
“Nettleton is really athletic, and they were hard to score against. Our girls kind of got our heads down and we challenged them to fight,” Ginn said. “The first half was pretty much back and forth but the third quarter they jumped on us. I thought we had a lot of fight. Within two minutes we were back in the game.”
Execution after turnovers turned out to be huge for the Lady Wolverines as the two teams both turned it over 20 times, but EWHS had 20 points off of turnovers to Nettleton’s seven. Da’nasia Logan was leading the way defensively with seven steals and she tied for the team lead with 12 points on 6-of-12 shooting. Shameriah Culpepper also had 12 points in the game with seven rebounds and Shan Culpepper had 10 points and eight boards.
Hallie Beth Reed had eight points and seven rebounds.
In game two on Tuesday, EWHS matched up with an always-tough South Pontotoc squad and came up short 63-49. The Lady Wolverines actually came out with the lead in the first quarter 13-10 but the Cougars raced out in front the next two quarters. Holding a 31-27 advantage at the half, SPHS outscored EWHS 20-9 in the third and would breeze towards the win.
3-pointers were the difference for SPHS. The Lady Wolverines shot a solid 43% and held the Lady Cougars to 32%, but SPHS made nine 3-pointers in the game and the Lady Wolverines were 0-for-3. Shan Culpepper had 20 points in the loss with 10 rebounds while Shameriah Culpepper had 15 points. Logan had 12 points.
The Lady Wolverines (3-3) were slated to take on Pisgah on Monday on the road and then hosting the East Webster Shootout beginning on Thursday against Philadelphia at 6 with a Friday matchup against Jackson Prep at 6 p.m. as well.
“My main reason for trying to beef up the schedule early is to learn how to compete. Last year we started 7-1 but I didn’t think we were playing strong competition. This year I tried to make more of a concentrated effort to make it tougher.”
Boys
Like the girls squad, the Wolverines had two tough matchups against Nettleton and South Pontotoc and came up empty in both games.
South Pontotoc had a runaway 49-28 win over the Wolverines in the first game of the tournament thanks to an 18-7 lead in the first quarter and 31-12 advantage at halftime. The Cougars shot a blistering 52% from the field and held EWHS to just 32% and 1-of-14 from long range with a 1-for-9 day at the line. It was also domination on the boards by the Cougars winning that edge 32-16.
Cade Morrow and Chandler Hodges had seven points to lead the team.
Against Nettleton in a 51-34 defeat, the Wolverines turned the ball over 26 times and gave away 27 points on those turnovers. The team had shot the ball well going 5-for-9 from 3-point range and hitting all seven free throws, but the turnovers took away a lot of the efficiency that the offense had.
Hayes Fason led the team with a 4-for-4 afternoon from 3-point range for 12 points.
“We need to come in and really focus on execution this week. Even though the scores don’t look good, there’s times we played well. We’re not very good at taking care of the ball right now but it’s fixable,” Ginn said. “This week it would be good if we had some success.”
The 1-5 Wolverines will try to regroup this week taking on Pisgah on Monday and will also play Philadelphia and Jackson Prep at the East Webster Shootout on Thursday at 7 p.m. and Friday at 7:30 pm respectively.
