Wildcat Boys Bring Home Third Place

WKLL Basketball Tournament

On Tuesday, Jan. 10, the Sharon Springs Wildcats traveled to Brewster to begin WKLL tournament play against the Dighton Hornets.

It was a nail-biter up to the final seconds. The Wildcats played their hearts out, but trailed for the majority of the game.

The Wildcats have been struggling this season with consistency behind the three-point line. In this WKLL opening game their three-pointers were once again off target. So it seemed fitting that the drought was finally broken in the last minute and a half when junior Gavin Mote made the team’s first three to tie it up. This was followed by Mote stealing the ball while pressing and laying it up off the glass, giving the Cats a two point lead.

Sophomore, Cayden Daily then made two free throws, putting the Cats up by four to win the game; final score being 56-52.

The Sharon Springs Wildcats showed much improvement compared to their last game against the Thunderhawks. The Cats rounded out the game with a total field goal percentage of 47 percent. Leading scorers for their WKLL opener were Mote with 23 and Daily with 14.

For their second round of tournament play the Wildcats took on the Healy Eagles in the Colby Community Building. Both teams started off slow and ended the first quarter with Healy leading 7-9. It was tied for a good portion of the quarter as both teams went into a scoring drought. However, Healy managed to knock in one more shot right before the buzzer to gain a slight lead.

In the second quarter freshman Ivan Montes was subbed in, and within seconds drained a three pointer. The crowd reacted with a roar which hyped the team up even more. Montes’ three put the cats on a scoring charge including another three-pointer by sophomore Callahan Grund.

Montes said, “Coach just told me to shoot, so I shot and it went in.”

The Cats were set back when a vital leader, junior Gavin Mote, took a hit to the chin and had to leave the game because of heavy bleeding.

For the third quarter of play, Mote returned to the line up with a glued and bandaged up chin. The Cats tried feeding the ball into the paint, but the Eagles were just too tall and made it very challenging. Several of Healy’s points came because the Cats just weren’t getting back on defense. With about two minutes left in the third, junior Eli Kuhlman made a two-pointer which put the score to 29-32, Healy being on top.

Every time the Cats started to gain momentum it was stopped when they fouled. Kuhlman’s defense forced the Eagles into a five second call with 22 seconds left, but the Cats followed it up with a turnover. To end of the third quarter the Cats trailed 33-36.

The fourth quarter started out positive for the Cats when Kuhlman hit a three pointer 15 seconds in to tie it up at 36. However, that changed rather quickly due to the Cats lack of defense on the Eagles fast breaks. The deficit continued to get larger and the Cats ended up losing to the Eagles 46-56.

Saturday the Cats played for third place against the Cheylin Cougars. A slow start had the Cats behind by three points at the end of the first quarter. The second quarter was much of the same as the Cats only managed to put five more points on the board.

Whatever was discussed in the Wildcat locker room at halftime had them fired up for the second half. They scored as many points in the third quarter as they had the entire first half. Not only did they finally find their rhythm on the offensive side of things, but they completely shut out Cheylin. The Cougars didn’t put up a single point during the quarter and it resulted in a 28-23 lead for the Cats heading in the final quarter of play.

Although the Cats were unable to copy their third quarter shutout, they did hold the Cougars to only 11 points while they scored 13. Sharon Springs secured their third place finish in the tournament with a 41-34 victory over Cheylin.

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