Falcons clipped in nonconference action

By Dan Truttschel~Sports Correspondent

With the young squad the Westosha Central boys basketball team has this year, there are going to be times when the Falcons don’t hit on all cylinders.

And when that happened last week, it cost Central its chance for a victory.

Visiting Burlington Catho-lic Central outscored the Falcons by six points in the third quarter and held on for a 54-53 non-conference victory. The loss dropped Central to 3-4 overall.

“Rebounding and effort were the difference,” Central coach Dave Sjong said. “We only won the rebounding bat-tle by three. They got some big offensive rebounds at the end of the game.

“Our effort overall wasn’t very good. We have to figure out how to come out ready to play and not dig a hole in the first quarter or half.”

The Hilltoppers jumped out to a 16-10 first-quarter lead before the Falcons rallied and trailed by just one point by halftime.

After Burlington’s big third quarter that saw it take a 43-36 advantage, Central rallied in the fourth, but fell just short.

Catholic Central hit nine 3-pointers in the game, includ-ing five by Bailey Wright, who led all scorers with 20 points.

“They hit some threes, but we expected that,” Sjong said. “They are a good-shooting team. We can’t give up se-cond-chance points.”

Sjong said his team may have struggled with a letdown after a fiercely competitive 54-50 loss to rival Wilmot just three days earlier.

But that’s a lesson this group has to learn, he said.

“It might have been a fac-tor, but every game matters,” Sjong said. “Until all these young players figure out how to mentally and physically play an entire game – every game – we will struggle at times.”

Ben Graveley led the Fal-cons with 15 points, followed by Marshall Gilbert and Glenn Karsten with eight and Jonah Arbet, Jordan Easthon and Ron Hall with six.

Central had been scheduled to host Delavan-Darien Friday night, but that game was post-poned because of weather. A makeup date has not yet been scheduled.

The Falcons will compete this weekend at a two-day tournament at Carthage Col-lege. Central plays Indian Trails Academy Dec. 26 at 5:30 p.m. and Kenosha Trem-per Dec. 28 at 4.

“It should be fun,” Sjong said. “We get to see some great competition and (the fact) that they are county teams makes it more fun. With the long layoff and the holi-day, hopefully it won’t take us too long to get going.”

 

Badgers roll past girls

The Central girls’ squad managed double figures in just the first quarter in a 57-32 Southern Lakes Conference loss Dec. 17 to visiting Badg-er.

Badger led 15-10 after the first quarter, but built its ad-vantage to 31-18 by halftime and never looked back.

Madi Stanczak led the Fal-cons with 12 points, followed by Jaela McGill and Megan Ziesmann with six each.

Central’s game with Dela-van-Darien was postponed Friday night. No makeup date had been determined early this week.

The Falcons are idle until Monday, Dec. 30, when they travel to Palmyra-Eagle for a 3:30 p.m. non-conference game with the Panthers.

 


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