Derrick Webb, Managing Editor
Southern Ohio Sports Authority is presented by OhioHealth.
JACKSON — All year long, Western has shown its best impressions of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
Some nights, the Indians play like they can beat anybody in the district. And others, they look like the youth-laden team that they are, taking their lumps, but learning their lessons.
On Saturday, Western once again showed glimpses of both of those traits.
But the Indians fought tooth and nail at every turn, playing well enough on the defensive end to earn an important 48-37 win over Southeastern in the Inaugural SOSA Basketball Classic.
“Every win for us is important because Division VII is wide open,” Western coach Doug Williams said. “You really legitimately have a chance if you get someone on a neutral floor. It’s wide open. With this young team, we’ve had games where we’ve scored 80-plus points and we’ve had games where we struggled to score 40. So you never know. That’s what we keep trying to tell this group. We tell them to keep fighting and deal with what’s in front of them. If you do that every day, maybe you get a little better and better, and make a run. That’s the goal.”
While junior Baiden Taylor was forced to shoulder much of the offensive load, he had plenty of help defensively, and on the glass, from every one of his teammates.
That was evident from the start as the Indians (7-9) forced eight turnovers in the first eight minutes of play, seizing a 9-4 lead going into the second quarter.
“Defensively, we’ve been pretty good all year long,” Williams said. “We’re a young team so, a lot of times, we’ll run into teams that we don’t necessarily physically match up well with. We were worried about that today. You watch Southeastern warm-up and they’re bigger than us. So we knew we couldn’t sit in a zone tonight. We were worried about rebounding and we knew that pressure on the ball would keep them from being able to enter the post. That was the goal.”
Western’s Chase Ware made it an 11-4 lead with a lay-in at the 6:51 mark before Taylor sank two freebies, making it 13-4 to finish a 6-0 run.
Later, with 4:06 to go, Taylor finished a hard drive to the bucket for a 17-5 lead. But just when it looked like the Indians were going to start running away with things, Southeastern (6-12) began to wake from its slumber.
Brayden Burns hit a 3, followed by a bucket from Brevin Strausbaugh, which cut the deficit to 17-10. Then, with just over two minutes to play, Strausbaugh sank two free throws, followed by another 3 from Burns for a 17-15 count, capping a 10-0 run.
By halftime, Western’s lead had shrunk to a single point at 19-18.
“We’ve really made our kids rebound in practice,” Williams said. “Now that takes away from the shooting part, but if you can’t shoot, you better rebound well. That’s kind of what we’re running into right now. We’re trying to fix things on the fly in the bad weather, but you can only do what you can do. Hopefully, when the end of February and March rolls around, it all comes together.”
The game stayed tight throughout the third. But Southeastern was never able to take a lead.
SE’s Gage Cheadle tied the game at 21-21 with an old-fashioned three-point play. But Western answered with a 3 from Taylor. When Jan Barraquer hit another 3 with 4:01 to go, the Indians had rebuilt their lead to 28-21 before eventually taking a 30-26 lead into the fourth.
The Panthers’ shooting woes came into full focus in the fourth as they tallied just two field goals in the frame. Meanwhile, Taylor hit a pair of 3-pointers while the Indians, collectively, went 7-for-8 from the free throw line to close the door on a much-needed win.
“Tonight’s a big win for us,” Williams said. “[Southeastern] is a little bit bigger than us so we’re going to gain some points in the RPI system. Any win we can get right now is a big one.”
Taylor led the Indians with 18 points while Brayden Jones and Landon Owens chipped in with eight and six, respectively.
As for Southeastern, Burns led the way with 10 points. Cheadle had eight, and Strausbaugh ended the day with six.
While the Panthers attempt to bounce back on Tuesday, hosting Southern, Western looks towards a league matchup with Northwest the same evening.
“[Northwest] beat us at their place on a last second shot and we didn’t shoot well that night,” Williams said. “They played zone and we shot poorly. Today, we shot just well enough to win. But we have to get to the point where it can’t just be shooting. We have to figure out other ways to score and other ways to win a basketball game, whether that’s the free throw line or getting to the rim. It’s still a learning process.”
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