SOUTH WHITLEY – After leading for the first 21 minutes of Tuesday’s game, the Whitko Wildcats found themselves trailing by as many as six points late in the third quarter. The Wildcats fought back, however, going on a 7-0 run over the waning seconds of the period and into the fourth quarter to retake the lead, then closing out the game on an 8-0 run to beat visiting Southern Wells 72-62. Wildcat sophomore River West had the last bucket of the third quarter and the first of the fourth, scoring eight of his 21 points in the final eight minutes. Junior Nate Walpole had 10 of his 28 points in the fourth quarter. Spencer Sroufe and Tanner Gaff each hit both ends of one-and-ones in the middle part of the quarter. After Southern Wells nabbed the lead, the game saw three ties and nine lead changes over the last 11-plus minutes. The Raiders’ Keaton Coleman, who tied Walpole for game-high honors with 28 points, keyed a 7-0 rally to give his team the lead it carried over to the fourth period. Whitko then decided it wasn’t folding its tent, buckling down defensively and hitting the big shots needed down the stretch. “I was really proud of how we played in the fourth quarter,” Wildcat head coach Roger Fleetwood said. “We’re down four, they made a real run at the end of the (third) quarter, all the momentum is going their way, they’re not supposed to win so they’ve got nothing to lose. We’re in a precarious situation there. You could lose it very easily, but we go right out there and score immediately, then Devon (Adkins) hits his only three of the night to give us the lead back, then River goes off hitting a long three, makes some free throws and hits a couple of shots. “The whole game turned around, like within, seconds. Defensively, we got stops. We did a better job covering No. 30 (Coleman). We let him get away one time in the fourth quarter, but other than that, we did a good job taking him out of the game in the fourth quarter.” Fleetwood said he felt the contest was a bit of a trap game, with Manchester, Churubusco and Class 3A No. 3 NorthWood left on the schedule. “This is the kind of game I’ve been worried about. These three games we had in a row, we were better than those teams and we were playing at home. We just beat Maconaquah in probably our biggest win of the year and probably our best game of the year. This was a tough game for us and I knew this would be the toughest of the three we played. I thought they were the best of the three.” “(The Raiders) are a solid team and I’m shocked they only have three wins, especially at the 1A level,” Fleetwood said. “That’s a pretty solid high school basketball team. And they were ready for us. But to be down by four going into the fourth quarter and win by 10, I feel pretty good right now.” The victory is the fourth straight for the Wildcats, the longest winning streak for the program since a five-game streak four seasons ago. Sroufe scored nine points and collected 12 rebounds for Whitko, which improved to 11-8 on the season. Saturday’s Three Rivers Conference game at Manchester has been moved from an afternoon tipoff to 7:45 p.m.
