It’s playoff time for the East Webster Lady Wolverines and it started off right on Monday night.
The Lady Wolverines (20-9) moved on in the new season as they took down Pisgah 67-50. Whitney Winter scored 17 points and Shan Culpepper and Meri-Grace Gregg had 15 to lead the way.
“We had to come out ready to play. We couldn’t turn the ball over because we knew the consequences,” Winter said. “We had a mindset that we couldn’t do the wrong things, so we worked really hard on it and came out strong. We’re together as a team right now and that helped a lot.”
It followed up a pretty successful few weeks for the Lady Wolverines as they hosted the Class 2A, Region 2 tournament at the Cumberdome in Cumberland.
All things held together for the Lady Wolverines last week as they matched up with the No. 1 seeded Calhoun City Lady Wildcats in the championship game. EWHS won the first game they played in the tournament when they beat Bruce 63-42. It was pretty much in control most of the ball game but wasn’t until the fourth quarter that the Lady Wolverines really pulled away thanks to a 10-0 run in the final few minutes.
Gregg scored 19 points in the victory and Lauren Graves had 14.
On Friday in the championship game, EWHS got off to a horrendous start and never could recover. The Lady Wildcats began the game leading 12-0. The Lady Wolverines managed to claw their way back into the game trailing 30-25 at halftime and Gregg’s 3-pointer out of the locker room even cut it to 30-28.
From there, the Lady Wildcats took over and would ultimately win 73-54 as they finished the game on a 19-3 run. Gregg again led the way with 17 points as she hit 5-of-8 3-pointers and Shan Culpepper scored 14.
The Lady Wolverines now prepare for round two. They travel to Clarksdale on Friday for a 6 p.m. tip against Coahoma County. The Red Panthers have been one of the best team sin the classification this year with a 26-3 record and just beat Mantachie on Monday, 61-42.
Head coach Jon Ginn has been without forward Shameriah Culpepper for the last two games after she injured her knee against Bruce in the district tournament but he’s hopeful she will be cleared by the doctor on Friday. He also played without Gregg for most of the second half as she got banged up on two separate plays.
“I would love to go in there full strength, but I love our team,” Ginn said. “We’ll take them to battle, find out what (Coahoma’s) strength and weaknesses are and try to exploit them.”
BOYS
EWHS clinched a spot in the playoffs with a win in the opening round of the Region 2 tournament last Tuesday. The Wolverines battled through some illness and rusty play from the team in order to get past Bruce and claim the first win over a district opponent all season.
It had been a tough road for the young Wolverines as they lost three of the four district games by four points or less but they finally got over the hump against the Trojans 52-42. Sedrick Taylor had 13 points in the win.
On Thursday in the semifinals, EWHS was tasked with having to beat one of 2A’s best teams as Calhoun City came to town. The Wildcats were every bit as good as they’ve been billed as they scored in the first 12 possessions of the game and won 92-58 to send the Wolverines to the consolation game. Reid Gatlin scored 19 points in the loss and Hayes Fason had 14.
In the third game in four days, EWHS was fighting for the third place finish against rival Eupora and won the second game against district competition in three tries last week after going 0-4 in the regular season. Taylor dropped in 14 points while Cael Chrismond and Blake Slay scored 11 points each. EWHS overcame 0-for-8 shooting to start the game before hitting four-straight in the final minutes of the first quarter.
They went up by eight points at halftime and pushed the lead out in the fourth quarter to win the game 53-37.
“We were real dead-legged. It looked like we were walking in mud, but I thought they did what they had to do to get it done,” Ginn said. “I was proud of the effort. I thought we did a good job in our man-to-man defense. If we could have scored a little earlier, it should have been a bigger margin of victory.”
The Wolverines (10-19) now get ready for tournament action as they were to travel to Pisgah on Tuesday night to play the Dragons. A win in that game pits EWHS against either New Site or Charleston on Saturday.
