Warriors Clip Lakers On Hardwood

The home losing streak is over for Wawasee after the Warriors held on for a 57-53 boys basketball win Monday night over visiting Lakeland.

Four Warriors reached double figures in scoring as Wawasee won its first contest of the year in Syracuse after losing its first seven home games.

Pacing Wawasee (3-10) was Gage Reinhard, scoring all of his team-high 15 points in the second half. Stori Bright netted a season-best 13 points, Alex Clark had 11 points and Aaron Voirol tossed in 10 points. Chase Myers wrapped up the varsity output with eight points.

Lakeland (5-8) had a tremendous night from Daemyn Priestley, who shot the lights out to score 31 points, 16 coming in the fourth quarter. Lakeland’s output, however, dropped off considerably from there as Marco Olivares netted eight points.

Wawasee trumped Lakeland in the junior varsity contest, 35-30, to open the night’s action. Stats were not provided from the JV game.

Wawasee is scheduled to play again Saturday at Northridge while Lakeland will visit Churubusco Friday night.

The freshman basketball team from Wawasee also played Monday night and surprised a good NorthWood team, 42-39, at the Panther Pit. Carter Jones led the Warriors with 13 points while Cameron Schlabach chipped in nine points.

The freshmen will next see the court Thursday in a home contest against Plymouth.

Allen Impressive Again, East Noble Still Claims Win

Emily Allen was sensation for Wawasee Monday night, but East Noble built enough gusto from its depth to edge Wawasee, 94.95-93.875, in gymnastics at Wawasee.

Allen stole the show with a career-best performance on the floor. Judge scores of 9.5 and 9.4 gave the senior a 9.45 average, one of the top floor scores Wawasee has had in a decade. First-place scores of 8.3 on bars and 8.6 on beam sent Allen to an all-around tally of 34.8, which gave her honors for the meet.

Molly Smith helped the cause with third-place finishes on floor (8.175) and bars (7.2).

Wawasee, however, faltered as a whole on vault, with Allen’s score of 8.45 just fourth and no other Wawasee score in the top five. Wawasee’s 21.75 combined score on beam, which had no one achieve over a 7.0 other than Allen, left the Lady Warriors 1.25 points off of East Noble, which made up the difference in the team scoring.

“We are still without junior standout Taylor Busse, and we needed some of the other girls to step up,” stated Wawasee head coach Nika Prather. Busse has been hampered of late with an injured ankle. “We still have a lot of work to do. Some girls are trying some new skills, but we really need to work on staying on the beam.”

Brianna Glass gave East Noble a lift with a top score of 8.7 on the vault and added in a 7.9 on bars, 8.0 on beam and 8.25 on floor, all runner-up scores to Allen. Lexie Spiess chimed in with an 8.5 on vault and 7.7 on beam.

In JV performances for Wawasee, Jade Skelton scored a 7.45 on vault, Autumn Yoder a 6.5 on beam and Haleigh Smarr a 7.675 on floor to pace Wawasee in a 66.35-62.075 loss to East Noble.

Wawasee (2-3) will travel to DeKalb Thursday.