Wins have been tough to come by at times for the Whiteland boys basketball team.
They have been even scarcer, though, for Martinsville, and on Friday night, the Warriors were able to beat up on the Artesians for an 84-58 victory.
Not only was it a season-high in points for Whiteland, but the win improves the Warriors’ record to 5-15 overall and 1-6 in the Mid-State Conference.
Whiteland, which never trailed in the game, won largely because of a some very sharp shooting from beyond the arc. A pretty heady defense also did the trick as the Warriors helped force Martinsville into 24 turnovers.
All in all, it was a complete game by the Warriors.
“This was one of our better games of the year,” coach Nate Cangany said. “We’ve had a lot of games this year where we played well for 20, 22 minutes, and with a young team you have to play well for 32 minutes and (tonight) we played closer to 32 minutes.”
Martinsville (1-19) not only lost its 14th straight game, but also its ninth in a row by double digits. Whiteland still didn’t want to take any chances giving the Artesians a chance for that rare win.
The Warriors assumed control quickly, jumping out to a 13-4 lead before Martinsville coach Kip Staggs called a timeout to try and get his team a break and more importantly, organized.
It didn’t work, as Whiteland increased the lead gradually in the first and without missing a beat, nearly doubled up the score by halftime.
The Warriors had hit 8 of 15 treys in the first half.
Martinsville cut the lead to 10 late in the second quarter and appeared to be on a run, but two straight 3-point shots by Logan Willoughby increased the lead to 34-18.
Both teams played an even third quarter with 17 points apiece, but if the Artesians were hoping for a comeback, that got thwarted early thanks to Willoughby and his brother, freshman Austin Willoughby, and Max Sullivan, who scored all 14 of his points in the second half.
Whiteland scored 26 points in the fourth quarter.
“I thought our defense was active and on offense we got good looks,” Cangany said. “We took some good 3s and we weren’t just forcing them up. We were getting the type of 3s we wanted and our guys knocked them down.”
Leading the way for the Warriors was Austin Willougby with 23 points. Logan Willoughby had 20.
Sophomore Kyson Jones was the fourth Warrior in double figures with 11 points.
The Warriors are in action again tonight when they travel to New Palestine.
