By David Rogers. HUDSON, N.C. — An early commanding lead in basketball means little when your opponent battles back to make a game of it. That’s why they play the whole game — and on Jan. 6, Watauga somehow managed to survive a scrappy, rallying performance by host South Caldwell to win, 51-44. It was both teams’ Northwestern Conference season opener, fittingly played with high energy in the raucous and electric Spartan gym.
The Pioneers seemed to take control early with a 14-7 lead at the end of the first quarter. But Watauga lost the inside presence of junior forward Jackson Pryor to foul trouble early in the second period and that proved at least one of the factors in the Spartans’ scrambling back to trail by only one at intermission (23-22) and by just three at the end of the third quarter (36-33).
The Pioneers shrugged off 17 turnovers and a seeming inability to finish at the rim, with layups and put-backs rolling off the backboard and around the hoop, rebound after rebound. But with disruptive defense of their own and bursts of timely offensive production, Watauga was able to hold off and survive the Spartan rallies.
“Obviously, there are some things we can improve upon,” said Watauga head coach Bryson Payne after talking with the team following the game. “I like the way we finished the game tonight. We played hard. We struggled to finish around the rim at times but, ultimately, we did enough to win. That’s our big thing: find a way to win. I was proud of the way our guys took care of the basketball at the end and get enough free throws to pull away.”
Of the deficiency in “finishing at the rim” that could have meant an even greater margin of victory, Payne said, “We work on that every day, but whether the ball goes in or doesn’t go in, we want a ‘next play’ mentality.”
In other words, while in the moment, don’t fret about mistakes. Move on to the next play and the next opportunity.
Of the 17 turnovers, Payne observed, “I have to credit South Caldwell head coach Danny Anderson for some of that. I have talked to other coaches and from what we saw tonight, he ran a completely new defense against us. He is really good at preparing his guys so I think early on we were kind of caught off guard. Later on, we got it figured out and got a little bit more organized. Also, this was a loud environment, with a lot of people here. It was the first conference game so the energy was high.
“Our guys want to score,” Payne added. “We might have been in a little bit of a hurry, but we want to push the ball. Some of those turnovers we are prepared to (absorb) because we want to push the tempo. With that, you are going to lose the ball sometimes.”
“It was a good win. Our defense really stepped up,” said Pryor after the game.
“This was exciting,” said a smiling Cole Horine afterwards. “We played four quarters tonight and played together as a team, with good defense. But we were pretty even in that we didn’t go up and down, and up and down, like we do sometimes. We had a really good finish.”
Of the turnovers, Horine said matter-of-factly, “We have to take care of the ball better. Sometimes I think we get in a bit of a rush. Overall, we are getting better every day.”
Watauga’s next game encounter is in Taylorsville on Jan. 10, at Alexander Central.
“They are very well coached,” said Payne of the upcoming game. “They have some size. They are likely to play a zone defense the whole time so we are going to have to be able to hit some shots. They like to pack the paint so we are going to have to try and finish in traffic. They will be very disciplined, running a lot of sets and screens, so we will have to talk through those. Our goal, defensively, is to make everything as difficult for our opponents as possible and rebound.”
Tipoff at Alexander Central is tentatively scheduled for 7:30 p.m. in the Cougar gym, to immediately follow the women’s varsity game.
SCORING SUMMARY
- WAT Wyatt Keller (18)
- WAT Grant Morrison (14)
- SCD Tyler Cline (13)
- SCD Tyler Eggers (12)
- SCD Caleb Greene (10)
- WAT Maddox Greene (8)
- WAT Wyatt Kohout (8)
- WAT Jackson Pryor (3)
- SCD Connor Setzer (3)
- SCD Carter Anderson (3)
- SCD Riley Heubaum (2)
- SCD Lawson Wilks (1)
