By David Rogers. WILKSBORO, N.C. — For a high school swimming dual meet, it doesn’t get much better than Watauga’s 68-7 women’s team win and the men’s 57-7 win over Alexander Central, especially with some of the Pioneers competing in other than their normal events or distances. The Wilkes YMCA hosted the event.

“We had a strong meet,” Pioneer head coach David Gragg acknowledged afterwards. “I used it as an opportunity for some swimmers to compete in ‘off’ events, which gave them a chance to swim something different than their normal routine.  For others, it gave them a last chance to improve time before next week’s scheduled conference meet or to swim on a relay for the last time of the season.  I appreciate Alexander Central for allowing it to just be us at the meet.  A tri-meet would have restricted our flexibility.”

Gragg seemed confident in his team’s prospects for the Northwestern Conference meet.

“We look forward to the conference meet next week,” said Gragg. “I have not looked at the season as us being defending champions, with teams chasing us.  Rather, it has been more about challenging ourselves and performing better than last year.  We will find out Wednesday how that goes.”

WATAUGA’S TOP PERFORMERS

Women’s 200 Medley Relay (4 entries)

• 1st – Watauga A, comprised of Lola Herring, Maggie Cheves, Lauren Patterson, Athena Elliott
• 2nd – Watauga B, comprised of Annabelle Stewart, MK Riddle, Macie Kent, Georgia Parker

Men’s 200 Medley Relay (3 entries)

• 1st – Watauga A, comprised of Anson Ross, Ryan Wood, Vaughn Ladd, Michael Makdad

Women’s 200 Freestyle (9 entries)

• 2nd – Maddy Elmore
• 3rd – Veronica Ryan
• 4th – Grace Lesesne

Men’s 200 Freestyle (5 entries)

• 1st – Summit Allan

Women’s 200 Individual Medley (3 entries)

• 1st – Annabelle Stewart
• 2nd – MK Riddle
• 3rd – Iyla Freed

Men’s 200 Individual Medley (1 entry)

• 1st – Michael Makdad

Women’s 50 Freestyle (28 entries)

• 1st – Lauren Patterson
• 2nd – Athena Elliott
• 3rd – Virginia St. Clair
• 4th – Lola Herring
• 5th – Georgia Parker
• 6th – Elise Rasco
• 7th – Austin Dyer
• 8th – Abbi Shuman

Men’s 50 Freestyle (17 entries)

• 1st – Vaughn Ladd
• 2nd – Anson Ross
• 3rd – Wes Coatney
• 4th – Ben Parker
• 6th – Drew Jasper
• 7th – Nick Lyons
• 8th – Sam Rex
• 9th – Thomas Moss

Women’s 100 Butterfly (1 entry)

• 1st – Elise Rasco

Men’s 100 Butterfly (3 entries)

• 1st – Vaughn Ladd
• 2nd – Anson Ross

Women’s 100 Freestyle (19 entries)

• 1st – Maggie Cheves
• 2nd – Virginia St. Clair
• 3rd – Athena Elliott
• 4th – Austin Dyer
• 5th – Cadence Smith
• 6th – Abbi Shuman

Men’s 100 Freestyle (14 entries)

• 1st – Ryan Wood
• 2nd – Paul Gamiel
• 3rd – Ben Parker
• 4th – Nick Lyons
• 5th – Trathan Gragg
• 6th – Drew Jasper
• 7th – Sam Rex
• 8 – Thomas Moss
• 9 – Silas Powell

Women’s 500 Freestyle (4 entries)

• 1st – Abi Pitts
• 2nd – Veronica Ryan
• 3rd – Annie Willis

Women’s 200 Freestyle Relay (8 entries)

• 1st – Watauga A, comprised of Lauren Patterson, Athena Elliott, Lola Herring, Virginia St. Clair
• 2nd – Watauga B, comprised of Georgia Parker, Annabelle Stewart, Macie Kent, Elise Rasco
• 4th – Austin Dyer, MK Riddle, Abbi Shuman, Cadence Smith

Men’s 200 Freestyle Relay (6 entries)

• 1st – Watauga A, comprised of Vaughn Ladd, Anson Ross, Ryan Wood, Michael Makdad
• 2nd – Watauga C, comprised of Nick Lyons, Trathan Gragg, Paul Gamiel, Ben Parker

Women’s 100 Backstroke (4 entries)

• 1st – Maggie Cheves
• 2nd – Macie Kent
• 3rd – Cadence Smith

Men’s 100 Backstroke (3 entries)

• 1st – Ryan Wood
• 2nd – Michael Makdad
• 3rd – Wes Coatney

Women’s 100 Breaststroke (4 entries)

• 1st – Lauren Patterson
• 2nd – MK Riddle

Men’s 100 Breaststroke (5 entries)

• 1st – Paul Gamiel
• 2nd – Summit Allan
• 3rd – Trathan Gragg

Women’s 400 Freestyle Relay (5 entries)

• 1st – Watauga A, comprised of Elise Rasco, Lola Herring, Maggie Cheves, Virginia St. Clair
• 2nd – Watauga B, comprised of Veronica Ryan, Abi Pitts, Cadence Smith, Annabelle Stewart

Men’s 400 Freestyle Relay (3 entries)

• 1st – Watauga A, comprised of Sam Rex, Drew Jasper, Ben Parker, Wes Coatney

By David Rogers. BOONE, N.C. — Maybe it wasn’t historic, but it was big. Watauga men’s basketball surprised Northwestern Conference power and season leader coming into the game, Freedom, 98-80, on Jan. 17 in Lentz Eggers Gym.

Behind Grant Morrison’s 13 points in just the first quarter, Watauga jumped out to a 25-16 lead at the end of the first stanza, then kept the proverbial pedal to the metal in finishing off the Patriots. The visitors from Morganton posted a strong third quarter in trying to rally back, but Watauga survived that, and then some.

Morrison finished the game with a team-high 27 points, one of six Pioneers scoring in double figures in the high flying contest. Wyatt Keller matched Morrison’s four 3-pointers, finishing with 16 points, while Wyatt Kohout added a pair of long distance shots from beyond the arc, adding 13 points to the Watauga total. Jackson Pryor and Maddox Greene offered 12 each, while Josiah Railey and freshman Cade Keller contributed 11 and 7, respectively.

Greene played a key role in the fourth quarter as the Patriots were looking to foul and get the ball back on any missed free throws by the Pioneers. Time and again, Watauga’s players got the ball into Greene’s hands where he waited to be fouled, then took advantage by going a perfect 10-for-10 from the charity stripe.

Freedom’s Amore Connelly tallied a game-high 31 points and teammate Philly Harris poured in 21 to lead the visiting Patriots.

It had been seven years since the Pioneers defeated the Patriots, 53-48, Feb. 11, 2016, at Lentz Eggers Gym. A month earlier, on Jan. 5, Freedom had defended its home court with a narrow, 79-76 win. The Watauga roster in the 2015-16 season was comprised of Caleb Bryson, Aaron Dobbins, Michael Ebaugh, Jeremy Ringler, Zach Valet, Bryant Greene, Jerron Mills, Corey West, Alex Marinakis, Jonathan McClannon, Dillon Carmichael, Kevin Kapral and Holden Russell, under the direction of head coach Rob Sanders.

Emerging from the locker room after the game to meet with reporters, a smiling current head coach, Bryson Payne, had just been “showered” by his players with the iconic Gatorade bucket and not a care in the world about the extra dry cleaning bill.

“It is something that we have been talking about all year,” said Payne in opening his remarks, “that preparation is always going to help you or catch up to you. There have been some times when we haven’t been prepared like we felt we needed to be and it caught up to us. A couple of those losses came in games we think we should have won but we didn’t play our best. Hopefully, we learned some lessons from it.”

Preparation may well have been the key to the Pioneers’ win over Freedom on Jan. 17.

“We had a good practice yesterday and a good practice on Friday with last week’s games moved up to Thursday. We were able to come out tonight and put a full game together,” said Payne.

Last week’s win over Hibriten, in similar fashion, seemed to help.

“Our guys, for the most part, are pretty confident in themselves and their abilities,” said Payne. “What the Hibriten game really did was help us get past the Alexander Central game where we felt like we didn’t play as well as we could have and they played pretty well that night. So it was kind of a double negative on us. The win over Hibriten helped us build some of that confidence back and that carried over to tonight.”

Payne shared that the team’s preparations were “nothing special.”

“We just worked on handling pressure, execution, boxing out.  Freedom’s ‘MO’ is that they want to put up a lot of points, run in transition and play a fast-paced game. So we wanted to try and slow them down, but we like to play fast, too. We didn’t necessarily slow them down, but defensively we made them shoot some tougher shots. We did well rebounding, and were successful in converting those rebounds into points at the other end… Our guys can compete with anybody as long as they come out and do the things we want to do.”

Next up for the Pioneers is an away game on Jan. 20 at Ashe County. The Huskies are 6-11 overall and 0-4 in Northwestern Conference play to date, with losses to league opponents South Caldwell, Freedom, Hibriten and Alexander Central.

SCORING SUMMARY

• Amore Connelly (31)
• WAT Grant Morrison (27)
• FRE Philly Harris (21)
• WAT Wyatt Keller (16)
• WAT Wyatt Kohout (13)
• WAT Maddox Greene (12)
• WAT Jackson Pryor (12)
• WAT Josiah Railey (11)
• FRE Kayden Lytle (10)
• WAT Cade Keller (7)
• FRE Dyson Dellinger (7)
• FRE Gavin McNaughton (4)
• FRE Braxton King (4)
• FRE Keegan Clark (3)

By David Rogers. BOONE, N.C. — If basketball games were decided only by a team’s dexterity at the free throw line, Freedom’s 6-for-6 shooting from the charity stripe won the night. But…

Watauga’s women’s basketball team ran over the visiting Patriots, 54-24, in front of a loud and enthusiastic crowd of supporters for both sides cramming Lentz Eggers Gym on Jan. 17.

Bonus photos at bottom of article

The Pioneers’ disruptive defensive effort offered Freedom relative few shooting opportunities and those the Patriots got off were mostly off the mark. Meanwhile, Watauga’s balanced scoring effort saw the Pioneers jump out to a 16-2 lead by the end of just the first quarter, and the lopsided results got even more lopsided after that.

This has been a year when different Pioneer players stepped up and made their mark on individual games to complement the consistent leadership — call it field generalship, in military terms — of sophomore point guard Kate Sears, who is averaging 20.6 points per game and, true to form, scored 21 against Freedom.

But as the Pioneers whipped the ball around the court, looking for the open shot opportunity, the “step up” sparks in this contest came from Laurel Kiker and Julie Matheson, right from the beginning.

Matheson hit from beyond the arc in the first quarter. It was a dagger to the heart of Freedom’s poise.

Kiker is the proverbial Energizer bunny who is known to make things happen on defense, shifting quickly from one side of the court to the other to pressure an opponent’s possession. She steals. She blocks. She flies around the court to disrupt.

Against Freedom, Kiker was even more. She drove the lane to the basket. She drove the lane or baseline before kicking the ball out to an open teammate. She shot and hit from beyond the 3-point arc. In addition to her defensive presence, Kiker was an offensive facilitator against the Patriots, scoring 11 points of her own and collecting an untold number of assists.

“Freedom is a well-coached team,” said Watauga head coach. “Tonight, our skill work paid off. We put the right pieces together to allow our players to play to their strengths. I think our defense caught them a little bit off guard. As a coach, I know you can prepare for something but it isn’t the same when you get out there and are actually playing against it. They struggled against our 1-3-1 zone, which was apparent by their having only scored 8 points by halftime. We got some runouts and established momentum.”

Barry was quick to acknowledge that even the best programs have their ups and downs from year to year.

“In the time I have been here, this rivalry has more often than not gone in Freedom ‘s favor,” said Barry.

Barry was candid in assessing the resurgence of Kiker.

“Against Myers Park (Nov. 26), that was probably Kiker’s best game up to this point. She was fantastic down in Charlotte over Thanksgiving. But today… defensive intensity was there, layups down the lane, hit a three… She is known for her scoring, but her defense led to some scoring opportunities for herself as well as for others, too,” said Barry. “Kiker, Caroline (Farthing), Brooke Scheffler are all tremendous defenders. It is frustrating for an opposing team when it looks like the shot opportunity is there when all of a sudden it isn’t because of their defensive play.”

Now 13-5 overall, 3-1 in Northwestern Conference play, will now take its game on the road for a Jan. 20 matchup at Ashe County, a familiar opponent since the Pioneers faced the Huskies in the recent High Country Holiday Classic championship game. Although the Pioneers came away from that encounter in Lentz Eggers Gym with a 61-50 win, Ashe County brings a similar record into the rematch, 12-4 overall and 3-1 against Northwestern Conference opponents. They have conference wins against Alexander Central, Freedom, and South Caldwell, losing only a 1-point decision to Hibriten, 66-65, on Jan. 10 in West Jefferson.

SCORING SUMMARY

• WAT Kate Sears (21)
• WAT Laurel Kiker (11)
• WAT Julie Matheson (6)
• WAT Brooke Scheffler (6)
• FRE Sydnie Demiter (6)
• FRE Ava Whitaker (6)
• WAT Charlotte Torgerson (5)
• FRE Ava Whisnant (4)
• FRE Peyton Caldwell (4)
• WAT Gracie Lawrence (3)
• WAT Kaitlyn Darner (2)
• FRE Statlee McGee (2)
• FRE Kaitlyn Hagman (2)

BONUS PHOTOS by David Rogers