Wawasee Knocks Out Whitko
LIGONIER – If you see a Wawasee basketball player walking around with slightly better posture in the next few days its because the Warrior just lifted a huge weight of their back Tuesday night.
Wawasee took its first step towards winning a sectional title by winning its first postseason game since March 4, 2011. The Warriors fought off a scrappy Whitko team to claim a 71-59 victory in the opening game of the West Noble Sectional.
“The first four minutes of the fourth quarter we were just a little stagnate,” remarked Whitko head coach Roger Fleetwood. “Wawasee upped the ante, their defensive pressure came up a little hotter and tighter and we just didn’t match that to start the second half. That was kind of the difference in the game.”
Whitko gave Wawasee everything it could handle throughout the game, especially in the first half. Wawasee never lost the lead during the game, but was only up 34-30 at the break after an exciting back-and-forth contest in the first half. But the third quarter was where the Warriors made their move. Wawasee began with an 9-0 and would outscore Whitko 14-5 in the frame.
“I really thought that was a key point,” said Wawasee head coach Steve Wiktorowski about the opening minutes of the third quarter. “We made some adjustment with how we were guarding 23 and it really was effective. We took him out for pretty much the whole third quarter. That really took Whitko’s rhythm and confidence away and put some pressure on their other guys.
“The other key was that we started to get the ball inside and got to the free throw line more.”
“23” was Whitko’s Nate Walpole who has been a game-wrecker for opposing teams all year long. Walpole scored a game-high 29 points Tuesday night and even got a nice compliment of 17 points from Cole Kessie, but Wawasee was able to top that duo with an impressive trio of scoring.
It started in the first half with Aaron Voirol. The senior has had a hot hand recently and he continued that against Whitko as he dropped a team-high 23 points, 18 of which came in the first half. Voirol was 5-6 from three in the first two quarters and led all scorers at the break.
Voirol’s offensive efficiency took a dip in the second half, but that did not damage the team as fellow seniors Alex Clark and Gage Reinhard began to take control. The ability to have that three-headed monster is exactly what makes the Warriors such a dangerous team to play at this point.
“It’s been working well for us lately,” Wiktorowski said of his scoring triumvirate. “That’s really been a key for us in recent games. Then you have Stori (Bright) there to crash the boards and get their misses which is huge. You throw in a few other guys making contributions, tonight that was David Rocha, and that’s what you want to see.”
Reinhard and Clark finished with 19 and 15 points, respectively. Reinhard led the team with six rebounds. Clark and Rocha led the team with three assists each.
The Warriors (12-11) will move on to another rematch as they face Tippecanoe Valley Friday night in the sectional semi-final at 6:00 p.m. The Vikings defeated Wawasee 63-49 last Friday night in the regular season finale, though Wawasee was without Gage Reinhard.
Whitko ends the season with a 6-17 mark, but miles ahead of where it was last year at this time, and much improved from the team fans saw in November.
“I’m really proud of the guys,” said Fleetwood. “This game kind of shows everybody what we’ve been doing since November. We were a bad, bad basketball team in November. We’re a solid team now, we’re not a great team, I’m not even sure if we’re a good team, but we’re a solid team now. We’ll come fight you for 32 minutes and we showed that tonight.”
The good, or rather great, news for Whitko fans is that the core of the team will return next season as there are only two seniors on the roster.
“I’m really excited about what’s to come for us,” Fleetwood stated. “First of all, we’ll be dropping to 2A and saying good-bye to this sectional and all of these big schools. We have our two guards back who are a freshman and a sophomore right now and are our leading scorers.
“Devin (Adkins) will be back for us, he’s played a lot of minutes for us and been real solid. I can name off everyone coming back, they’ve all been big for us. Then we have a couple of big freshmen coming in next year with a really talented class. We feel like the future is bright.
“I came here because I know how good Whitko used to be. Somebody wanted this team back on the map, we feel like we are back on the map. We are not near the center of that map yet, but we’re at least being talked about and working our way back.”