Gallery by Heather Belcher
The faces of the head coaches were different Saturday night, yet familiar.
On the hardwood however, it was the typical Wyoming County basketball hysteria inside the War Zone.
Staring down county rival Westside with a new head coach named just 24 hours earlier, Wyoming East just played basketball.
Guided by 13 points from senior Zach Hunt who led a balanced Warrior attack with stingy defense, Wyoming East took round one from the Renegades, 57-45 in front of an overflow crowd.
“I have progressed through high school. It is not really a nervous feeling, it just I am ready to go,” Hunt said about the Westside showdown. “The adrenaline is flowing and you are not thinking really. We didn’t really do anything different. We just played basketball.”
Following the dismissal of head coach Derek Brooks just over two weeks back, former Wyoming East standout Kent McBride was officially named head coach of the Warriors late Friday.
“We can’t go through this and not comment on the fact that the previous staff had their hands in this. They might not be here, but their hands are all over this. They are running plays and things out there that I don’t even know the name of (yet) and they are executing to get baskets,” McBride said. “The defensive preparation and what they did, I didn’t put that in yesterday. That was handed to me and I am grateful for that. The seniors did a great job. If you are going to compete in Charleston in March, you have to seniors that you can count on.”
After trailing 10-9 through one quarter, Westside took what turned out to be its only lead of the night on a 3-pointer from Austin Bishop to open the second quarter.
A hard drive from senior Landen Hodges tied the game for the final time before buckets from junior Braxton Morgan and sophomore Konnor Fox put the Warriors in front for good.
Midway through the second period, a pair of scores by senior Corey Hall and a slam from Fox built the lead to 10 points which settled at nine when the halftime horn sounded.
Over the first 16 minutes, Wyoming East had held its county rival to just 17 points.
“The only thing I could talk about in pre-game was whatever defense you run, if you can’t guard the ball, then none of them are any good. They did a really remarkable job guarding the ball,” McBride said. “Westside is a tough cover. They have guys that can handle everywhere. We just worked really hard to make them take tough shots. It is a mindset thing and the kids had the mindset.”
The scoring woes for the Renegades carried over to the third period when East opened on a 9-3 run to take the biggest lead of the contest.
Wyoming East, however, was not the only school going through a coaching transition. Former Westside head coach Thomas Evans had also been suspended a couple weeks back before being terminated Friday.
Nick Cook had taken over as the interim coach and talked about how the transition slowed offensive production for the Renegades Saturday.
“We have been working on some stuff and they are not 100 percent comfortable with it. One thing that was probably my fault, I tried to give them some sets to run, but they misinterpreted that we have to run those sets instead of running the ball up and down the floor, which they are really good at,” Cook said. “I thought we wanted to set it up a little too much. We have to go in transition, run the break and the secondary break. It was a little miscommunication. They were thinking I wanted these offenses ran, but I was giving them these offenses for times it did break down and we needed to grind something out.”
The visitors were able to speed up the game late in the third quarter to cut the lead back to nine points on a 3-pointer from Bishop, but as the clock ticked down, freshman guard Talan Muscari weaved his way through the defense for 3-ball to beat the buzzer.
“That is just understanding the situation. Whenever we hit that bucket with six or seven seconds, we can’t gamble at that point,” Cook said. “We have to keep that guy in front of us and not take that gamble to put us in a bad situation on the back. Just have to understand situational basketball.”
The first possession of the fourth quarter tossed more gasoline on the Warrior fire and Muscari was the igniter once again.
The freshman sensation poked the ball free in the paint to Braxton Morgan who pitched it ahead to Fox for another slam that sent home crowd into a frenzy.
“When you get buzzer beaters like that and then you turn around and dunk the ball, those are big. They got it in and (Talan) goes and makes a play. It was a heck of a play and helped neutralized the run,” McBride said. “Me coming back into high school basketball, (assistant coach) Rory (Chapman) always said that a dunk in high school is probably worth five or six points. He is right. It is not seen as frequent.”
The lead for the home team never dropped below 10 points the rest of the way
“Some things never change. It was a great atmosphere and both teams played hard,” Cook said. “They played a little harder I felt like tonight and that was the difference.”
Bishop matched Hunt for game-high scoring honors, while Colton Lester had 11 and Kyler Kenneda scored nine for the Renegades.
Muscari finished with nine points, followed by Morgan and Fox with eight each. Broc Johnson and Hall added seven apiece.
W: 9 8 16 12 – 45
WE: 10 16 17 12 – 57
Westside
Austin Bishop 13, Kyler Kenneda 9, Bryson Blankenship 4, Kaiden Vance 5, Colton Lester 11, Braxton Waldron 5.
Wyoming East
Braxton Morgan 8, Zach Hunt 13, Konnor Fox 8, Talan Muscari 9, Broc Johnson 7, Landon Hodges 5, Corey Hall 7.
