In the middle of a hot start earlier in the year, the East Webster Lady Wolverines had a tough loss to the Vardaman Lady Rams.
EWHS dropped that game 61-55 and it ended a four-game winning streak. They would then win three more games after that. The Lady Wolverines are back on an upward trajectory late in the season having won five of the last six games including getting revenge on the road against Vardaman on Thursday, 62-52.
It was a disaster start for EWHS as they fell behind 16-2 in the first quarter but they fought their way back into the ball game. At halftime it was 29-18, but the Lady Wolverines had the momentum. They came out of the locker room and bested their total from the first half with a 23-point quarter taking the lead 41-39.
It was much of the same in the fourth as the Lady Wolverines put up 21 points to grab the double digit win.
Meri-Grace Gregg had a huge day with 21 points scored and she nailed four 3-pointers in the win. Whitney Winter also showed up big with 16 points but it was her second half work that sparked the team as she scored 14 points in the last two quarters.
The Vardaman win followed up another win earlier in the week as EWHS sealed up the No. 2 seed in Class 2A, Region 2 by defeating J.Z. George 66-48. They finished the regular season 3-1 in district play with the only loss to the No. 1 seeded Calhoun City Lady Wildcats.
After coming out with a 24-5 lead in the first quarter, Ginn felt he took his foot off of the gas pedal and allowed the Lady Jaguars to stay in the game. The team got to as close as 14 points, but the game was never really in danger.
Still, the coach felt things should have gone much smoother for his team.
“That was poor coaching. I subbed too quick and I put the breaks on midway through the second quarter. I should have kept the gas on,” Ginn said. “We gave them some life. Once you stop the train it’s hard to get rolling again.”
EWHS jumped back up 56-32 after the third quarter before allowing JZ George to make one final run at 59-44 with 3 minutes left but their effort was futile in the grand scheme.
Winter scored 17 points to lead EWHS as she made 6-of-12 shots with a trio of 3-pointers. Gregg scored 15 points and Shan Culpepper had 13.
With the wins, EWHS moved to 16-8 on the year and 3-1 in Region 2.
BOYS
There were 24 ticks left on the clock when it looked as if the East Webster Wolverines were about to hold the ball for a chance to win their first Class 2A, Region 2 ball game of the year against JZ George.
Instead, the ball bounced off the side of the rim, in the hands of a Jaguar player and he laid it up and in to give the visitors a lead they wouldn’t relinquish as JZ George won 60-56. It all made for yet another late-game loss for the Wolverines.
“I go back and I think that (JZ George’s) last two field goals were off of offensive rebounds. We missed a free throw at the end that would have gotten it to within one and if he would have hit another one it would have tied it but I told Blake (Slay) that didn’t lose the game,” head coach Jon Ginn said. “The thing that killed us was the offensive rebounds. We knew that they were going to shoot but we knew we couldn’t give them second chances.”
It was a disappointing game for many reasons for the Wolverines. For one, it made them winless in the division this season in a year where so many games have been within striking distance. It also was a good game by the Wolverines overall as they built a double digit lead at one point.
EWHS had 16 points from Chandler Hodges, 11 points from Cael Chrismond and 10 points from Reid Gatlin. There were a lot of good moments, but the scoreboard read a loss for the Wolverines.
It was a game that the Wolverines led for most of the four quarters. They were up 14-12 at the end of one frame, 26-20 at the half and had jumped out to as much as a 10-point lead in the third quarter.
Things started to trickle off for the Wolverines in the third and fourth quarter, however. Senior leader Sedrick Taylor went down with an injury in the third and things began to start tapering off on the offensive end.
“We were working through Sedrick in the middle. He was really a stability factor for us against their press. When he went down midway through the third quarter, that hurt us. We really needed him on the floor down the stretch,” Ginn said. He’s a big body and it’s hard to get around him to get a rebound.”
A 41-32 lead in the third quarter dwindled down to one point as the Jaguars came out of the break on a 10-2 run to cut it to 43-42 with 5 minutes left. The Wolverines began to pull it back out after a timeout with a 6-0 run but JZ George was not going away. With 1:49 remaining, they came all the way back to take the lead at 54-52 and the game went back and forth from there.
The Wolverines did get a win back on Thursday when they went up against Vardaman for the second time this season. It broke up a four-game losing streak as EWHS knocked off the Rams 64-44 on the road. Blake Slay had 12 points as did Gatlin and Chrismond added 10 points of his own.
There are just two games remaining for the Wolverines and Lady Wolverines n the regular season as they take on Houston for Senior Night on Tuesday and Houlka on Thursday. They’re sitting at 8-17 and finished 0-4 in Region 2 play to get them the No. 5 seed in the tournament next week. Three of their four losses came in the final 30 seconds of the ball game.
