SYRACUSE – And the streak goes on.

For the seventeenth consecutive time the Wawasee Warriors boys basketball team has lost a Northern Lakes Conference game. Friday night at the Hardwood Tee Pee the Warriors had their chances to end the streak but it was Elkhart Memorial who played the better game and ultimately claimed a 56-46 victory over the Warriors.

“I feel we just left our best basketball on the practice floor this week,” said Steve Wiktorowski, head coach for Wawasee. “I was a little disappointed for as big of a game this was and how hard we practiced this week that we didn’t play better than we did.”

The Warriors started sluggish in the first quarter, not hitting their first field goal until nearly four minutes into the game. But after the first bucket went in Wawasee was able to find a rhythm and close a previous seven-point Charger lead into just a 15-13 Memorial advantage going into the second quarter.

In the second quarter, the Warrior offense failed to make any noise, scoring just five points to Memorial’s 14. The rest of the game the Warriors were dead even with the Chargers in terms of scoring quarter-by-quarter. 13-15, 13-11, 15-16 were the counts between Wawasee and Memorial from the first, third and fourth quarters, respectively. The nine point differential in the second quarter made a huge impact on what would end as a 10-point victory for the Chargers.

Memorial received double-digit scoring performances from three players. Dimitri Giger and Mikal McGuire both contributed 13 points while Cameron Maxwell led the Chargers with 18 points.

The Warriors had just one player get into double-digits, Gage Reinhard. The Wawasee junior had an outstanding game from the floor, hitting six three-pointers and reaching a career high 28 points. Reinhard also tied to lead the Warriors in rebounds with five.

“I thought it was great to see Gage step up like he did tonight,’ said Wiktorowski. “He had a lot of weight on his shoulders with trying to guard (Dimitri) Giger. He had 28 points and to be honest with you, I think he passed up a few shots out there.

“I think we had some other guys out there that seemed to shoot with a little more smoothness and without as much hesitation. So, there were some positives but we still have some things that have to be improved.”

One area the Warriors must improve in is turnovers. Wawasee had 15 turnovers on Friday night, Memorial had only seven. The Warriors did win the rebound battle 25-18 thanks to Reinhard’s five as well as another five boards from Stori Bright. On the scoreboard Alex Clark was the second-highest scoring Warrior with eight points, no other player had more than one basket.

“I thought tonight was the best effort that our guys have given,” started Memorial head coach Mark Barnhizer. “In terms of playing together and getting our kids to run what we want them to run, this was our best effort of the season. We turn right around to play Hobart tomorrow in a make-up game so we are happy to have this great effort tonight and are focused on carrying it over.”

Wawasee will also turn right around as it plays the other Elkhart school on Saturday night.

“To be honest, I am glad we don’t have much time to think about it,” Wiktorowski stated. “We felt we beat ourselves tonight and good teams don’t do that. We feel a lot of what went wrong tonight was mental and can be fixed without stepping into a gym. So, we are ready to be able to get back out there right away.”

Wawasee (1-9, 0-3) will tip-off at North Side Gymnasium at 7:30 p.m. against the Blue Blazers of Elkhart Central. Memorial (5-6, 3-0) will play Hobart at Memorial Gymnasium, also at 7:30 p.m.

In the junior varsity contest the Chargers JV escaped the Warrior JV 37-35. Parker Hatfield had nine for Wawasee Stephon Miller added another eight for the Warriors.