Tigers can’t crack Wildcat defense
Tue, 02/23/2010 - 12:00am
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MENLO – To continue their season, all the Red Oak boys’ basketball team had to do is win on the road against the 12-9 West Central Valley Wildcats.
The Tigers opened the game with a lot of intensity, pulling ahead by as many as seven points in the first quarter, but it would not last as Red Oak fell, 64-40.
In the first quarter, the Tigers capitalized on three Wildcat turnovers to go on a six-point run. With under two minutes left, West Central Valley rallied, to pull ahead of the Tigers 16-15 with less than a minute left in the first quarter. Their scoring streak was topped off with a technical foul called on a Red Oak player for arguing a traveling violation.
The Tigers kept fighting through the first four minutes of the second quarter, shooting basket-for-basket with the Wildcats until West Central Valley went on a 7-0 run to end the first half, leaving Red Oak with a 31-24 deficit.
The Wildcats kept Red Oak out of the lane the entire second half as the defense held the Tigers to only five points in the third quarter, while tacking on another 16 points of their own.
The Tiger offense struggled, shooting 15 of 47 (32 percent) and six of 16 from beyond the three-point arc.
Cody Walford led the Tigers with 11 points in the losing effort. Colby Wise also added six rebounds rebounds.
Senior Cody Walford played his last game of his career as a Tiger, averaging 8.9 points per game this season and 8.6 ppg over the last two seasons.
Red Oak also loses seniors Jackson Miller (3.4 ppg, 3.4 rebounds per game), who missed the last three games of the season due to a broken bone in his foot, and Dylan Hambright (3.3 ppg, 2.5 rpg) who missed most of the season nursing his surgically repaired knee.
“We’re going to miss our seniors,” Red Oak Boys’ Basketball Head Coach Brad Schlieman said. “They’re great kids, and I’ve personally enjoyed being around them and getting to know them the last four years.”
The Tigers finished the season 3-18, finishing eighth in the Hawkeye 10 with a 3-15 conference record.
“The season as a whole, we mad a bit of progress, but no one in our program is going to be satisfied with a little bit,” Schieman said. “I’m anxious and excited to see how our underclassmen respond to the challenge of improving enough to move up the ladder in the Hawkeye 10 and 2A basketball as a whole.”