NAPPANEE – For three quarters Friday night, Wawasee looked like a team ready to earn its first Northern Lakes Conference boys basketball win in more than three seasons. An icy-cold shooting streak in the fourth quarter, however, doomed the Warriors and left them with a 64-51 loss at NorthWood. Wawasee used a 10-0 run to jump to an early first-quarter lead, and when the host Panthers drew close the Warriors responded with a 6-0 run to solidify a 17-11 lead after the first quarter. Warrior Aaron Voirol hit a pair of threes and had 10 first-half points, but NorthWood, led by the inside play of Dakiyron Fox and his 12 first-half points, chipped away at its own icy shooting touch to draw within two at halftime. The third quarter saw two ties and five lead changes, with the Panthers taking a one-point lead into the final quarter. That’s when it all fell apart for the Warriors. NorthWood’s Vincent Miranda, on his way to a game-high 23 points, and teammate Braxton Linville led the Panthers on a 15-2 run in the first five minutes of the final period. Wawasee managed but one field goal, a layup from Gage Reinhard, in the first seven minutes of the decisive fourth quarter. From there, Miranda and Linville went 10 of 10 from the free throw line to ice the victory. Wawasee head coach Steve Wiktorowski indicated his team played well, but the cold streak was costly. “I’ve always said ‘there’s a big difference between playing well and shooting well,’” he said. “I thought even in the second half we didn’t play poorly. We weren’t quite as intense as we were in the first half, but I thought we were trying to attack the basket, and to be honest I thought we should have shot a few more free throws. “But the free throws we did have, we didn’t always knock those down. And our jump shots; I thought we had pretty good looks and they just weren’t going down. They got a couple of long rebounds, and got fast breaks going off of that. “I thought as far as how we wanted to play them, I told the kids that they carried out the game plan (Friday) about as well as any game plan they’ve had all year. We came into a tough place to play and we really made them work hard to score. It basically came down to the shooting percentage in the second half; they hit almost 55 percent and we hit 33 percent. It was a close game, but you’re just not going to win it with shooting percentages like that. “It came down to hitting some shots, and we didn’t. If we could have hit a few more, and kept the pressure on them a little bit, that easily could have been a different ballgame.” Voirol finished with 18 points for Wawasee. Alex Clark, after only getting two in the first half, finished with 10 points. Reinhard tallied seven points, with Jayce Boatwright and Jake Hutchinson chipping in six each. Wiktorowski said he’s happy Voirol has increased his point production, and there are some positives to take away, even though the Warriors’ NLC losing streak has reached 23 games. “About the last three games (Voirol has) been starting to come around,” Wiktorowski said. “We need to get poor Gage going; he’s not 100 percent with that shoulder. I think anybody can see that; his shot is just not there. I thought Alex attacked the basket pretty well, he just had some shots that rimmed out on him. We need to get his outside shot going a little bit. I thought Jeffrey Moore came in and ran the offense pretty well for us, especially the first half. We had some kids come in off the bench and help us with our defensive game plan. I thought Jayce came in and kept showing how he can help us. We think there’s some positive things here. We’ve just got to build on that and grind our way through January.” Wawasee is now 5-5 on the year, and fell to 0-2 in the conference. The Warriors wil travel to Elkhart Memorial Friday for a 7:45 p.m. NLC contest. NorthWood improved to 9-1 overall and 2-0 in the NLC. The Panthers host New Prairie Tuesday.
