Avaree Freel (left) and Katlyn Kennedy (right) battle for a rebound in the fourth quarter of Tuesday’s game. (Photos by Nick Goralczyk)

SYRACUSE – It was a tale of two halves for the Whitko and Wawasee girls basketball teams Tuesday night.

After a spectacular first half of play by the visiting Wildcats, Wawasee found its niche in the second half to keep fans entertained to the final minute. Whitko did enough early on to stay safe late winning 48-37 over Wawasee.

Aly Reiff brakes away for an easy two.

Whitko held a 19-point lead at the half, 31-12, over Wawasee. After three quarters of play the Wildcats still held a 39-21 advantage, but even that lead ended up in jeopardy.

Wawasee decided to make a game of it in the fourth quarter, opening the frame on a 9-2 run. The Lady Warriors would actually work the Wildcat lead down to eight points with just under two minutes to play. Once the clock started working against Wawasee, Whitko was able to use several trips to the charity stripe to secure the win.

“We started reacting instead of attacking,” said Whitko head coach Brandon Bradley on his team’s second half performance. “For the first half Wawasee played its typical 1-2-2 extended defense and we were prepared for that.

“In the second half they switched to a triangle-and-two. We were prepared for that we’ve worked on that in practice, we’ve seen it a lot and we’ve played well against it at times. Tonight, for whatever reason, we stood a lot instead of continuing to screen and cut. We played like we were satisfied with a 19-point lead at halftime. I think that was the reason for a dismissive offense and defensively, we were stagnate there, too.”

Kylee Rostochak takes a hard foul while going up for this shot.

Whitko was outscored 25-17 in the second half by Wawasee. While the change of defense helped Wawasee, Lady Warrior head coach Kem Zolman pointed out another reason for his team playing better in the second half.

“When you get down 20, it’s easy to come back, it’s easy to play free. There’s nothing really on the line at that point,” said Zolman. “It’s harder to play that way at the beginning and throughout the course of the game. That’s just not what we’re doing right now, we’re waiting until we’re down 10, 15, 20 until we decide to play.”

The Lady Warriors certainly did seem to play more loose at times in the second half. Leading scorer Kylee Rosotchak certainly seemed to change soemthing about her game as she scored 18 points after the break. Rostochak finished with a game-high 21 points. Whitko’s Aly Reiff was not far behind with team-high 20 points.

Brianna Cumberland gave Whitko a strong second scoring option as she tallied 14 points of her own. Jennifer Reiff scored six point for the ‘Cats while Maddie Gawthrop and Emily Day each scored four points for the visiting squad. Elizabeth Jackson scored nine points while Hannah Haines (four points) Aubrey Kuhn (two) and Hannah-Marie Lamle (one) rounded out the scoring for Wawasee.

The second half showed that, perhaps, these two potential sectional foes are not as different as their records show.

Riley Insley brings the ball up for the Wildcats during the junior varsity contest.

“Anytime we play a team that has seniors, we struggle,” Zolman stated. “But, that team didn’t tonight. We’re just as good as that team, but they played harder at the beginning, so, they’re better than we are tonight. That really about sums it up.”

It was a night where both coaches had plenty to scratch their head about, but there were still positives. The key moving forward for both teams will be getting a better balance of the two.

“We feed a lot off of momentum, positively and negatively,” Bradley stated. “I think that’s a problem. We need to find some stability. I told the girls after the game that this was not about game plan or personnel. This was all about the roller coaster of emotions. It can’t be that when things go good, they go really good and when things go bad, they go really bad. You’ve got to be steady.”

Whitko (10-7) will look to find that consistency Saturday when it travels to Northfield for a 2:30 p.m. game. This is the first time that Whitko has had back-to-back double-digit win season since 2006-07 and 2007-08 Whitko teams accomplished the feat.

Wawasee (4-13) will travel to Plymouth (11-6) Saturday night for a 7:45 p.m. varsity tip.

Wawasee’s junior varsity squad overcame an eight-point deficit at the end of the third quarter by scoring 21 points in the fourth to win 37-35. Kayla White hit three threes in the final frame to help lift her team. White finished with a team-high 13 points. Anna Ousley led Whitko with 15 points.

Hannah Haines eyes the ball while playing defense for Wawasee.