SPEICHERVILLE – After trailing by 19 at the end of the third quarter, Whitko mounted a furious rally that came upm one point short in a 69-68 loss to Northfield Friday night. The Wildcats found themselves in the deep hole with poor play, according to head coach Roger Fleetwood. “It was the worst half of basketball we’d played all year,” he said. “We couldn’t get shots to go down, we didn’t rebound, we didn’t play defense, we just didn’t play well at all. “In the third quarter we played better but still couldn’t get shots to go down. At the start of the fourth quarter, we finally started getting shots to drop. We started a full-court press and that forced them into some turnovers and we converted the turnovers to points. We had that 19 points down to 10 with 5-1/2 minutes to go.” The Wildcats had the ball three times in the last two minutes with a chance to tie. River West missed a game-tying three, and Tanner Gaff made the stickback as time expired for the final margin. Junior Nate Walpole turned in one of the great single-game scoring performances in Whitko history, scoring 43 points, including 22 in the fourth quarter. Freshman Spencer Sroufe finished with nine points and five rebounds, and West finished with six points. Gaff had four points and 12 rebounds. The game concluded what wound up being an eight-game road trip; the Wildcats haven’t played a home game since losing to Tippecanoe Valley 64-55 Dec. 18. Whitko went 3-5 since then, and now stands 7-8 on the season and 3-3 in the Three Rivers Conference. Whitko hosts Maconaquah Jan. 30.
