Part of the evolution of a young team — and perhaps the most important start — is learning how to finish games off.
After letting a few close games slip away against county opponents, Whiteland took a big step forward by pulling out a 66-65 home win over Indian Creek on Thursday evening.
“Tonight we played 32 minutes,” junior Logan Willoughby said. “There have been a bunch of games where we played 24, 26 minutes but haven’t played the whole game, which hurt us in the end. I felt like tonight, we played the whole game.”
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The Warriors (4-12) came into the night having dropped seven games in a row, including a two-point defeat against Greenwood and an overtime setback at Franklin as well as a 76-60 loss to the Braves in the Johnson County tournament.
But Willoughby and Max Sullivan scored 17 of their combined 39 points in the fourth quarter in Tuesday’s rematch, helping Whiteland hang on at the end of a back-and-forth battle that saw the lead change hands 15 times.
“I honestly do think that they believed that we’re getting closer, but they are 14, 15, 16, 17 years old,” Whiteland coach Nate Cangany said. “They’re young kids, and they need to see some results. The good moments that we’ve had in games have given them confidence, but I was really waiting for that final result, that W on the scoreboard, to give them some confidence — and you could just tell in the locker room after the game, it was kind of like a weight was off their shoulders.”
Two Willoughby free throws and a Sullivan drive gave the Warriors a 62-58 advantage with 1:38 remaining, an edge that barely held up. Mason Britt baskets twice cut the deficit to two on a pair of occasions, and the Braves (12-4) created one more chance to tie or win when it forced a turnover with 10 ticks left on the clock.
Indian Creek’s Gavin Hillenburg was fouled on the way to rebound a Britt miss with 1.9 seconds to go, and he made the first free throw, but the second bounced out and the visitors couldn’t corral the miss in time to get a go-ahead shot up.
Coach Drew Glentzer believed there were several key moments that contributed to his team’s demise before that final sequence.
“We had more than our fair chances to win the game,” he said. “We had some crucial turnovers late when we had a chance to take the lead, but … they made plays and we didn’t.”
An 8-0 burst in the middle of the first quarter, keyed by consecutive buckets from Xavier Ferris, got Indian Creek out to a 14-7 lead, and the cushion got as large as nine early in the second after back-to-back 3-pointers from Ferris and Javan Crouch. But the Warriors battled back behind eight second-quarter points from Willoughby, and after Dylan Gross banked in a 3 from the left wing at the horn, the hosts went into the half down just one point at 32-31.
Willoughby scored to put Whiteland in front at the outset of the third quarter, the first of eight lead changes during the period. Indian Creek led 49-47 entering the fourth, but the Warriors tied it on a Reid Wilburn layup and pulled ahead on a Sullivan 3 with 7:14 remaining. The Braves pulled back in front at 54-52 on a Jordan Watson putback, but another 3 from Sullivan, his fourth of the night, gave Whiteland the upper hand at the 4:48 mark.
The Warriors appeared to be in good shape when a corner 3 attempt from Willoughby bounced in to make it a four-point game with 4:13 left, but Britt scored four consecutive points to tie the game for the ninth and final time with just under three minutes to go.
Britt led the Braves with 19 points, nine of those in the fourth period. Ferris added 15, Watson totaled 13 points and eight rebounds and Hillenburg contributed nine points.
Willoughby finished with a game-high 22 in the win, followed by Sullivan with 17 and freshman Austin Willoughby with 13. Cangany, though, saw contributions from all 11 players he sent in.
“Everybody that went on the court stepped up and gave us something,” he said. “It was nice for our guys to finally pull one of those close ones out, and hopefully they get some confidence for the rest of the season.”
