Emily Day (11) and Kacy Bragg (31) battle for position after a free throw in Whitko’s 50-28 win over Warsaw Friday night. Friday’s game was Bragg’s first career start for the Lady Tigers. (Photos by Nick Goralczyk)

WARSAW — It’s hard to leave media members speechless. It’s hard to leave fans speechless. It’s harder yet to leave a coach speechless. But that was the case Friday night at the Tiger Den following a 50-28 Whitko win over Warsaw. The result put the Lady Tigers at 0-6 for the season, something the program has never experienced, and allowed Whitko to cross another team off its list.

In the post game interview there was not a lot that came to mind for reporters to ask Warsaw head coach Michelle Harter, but that was something she understood all too well at the moment.

“I don’t blame you, I don’t know what to say either,” Harter told media members, “other than that we’re better shooters than what we showed tonight. We just have to step up and take our shot with confidence. We were out of sync from the get-go.”

For much of the first three quarters the Tigers looked lost and completely out of place on the court with Whitko. When Warsaw got open looks, shots were rushed. The offense practically had a Black Friday special of its own in the first half by giving the ball away 12 times. Whitko took advantage of seemingly every takeaway and looked confident in every aspect for most of the game. It was the opposite of what history has seen from this matchup.

Whitko opened the game on an 8-0 run fueled by two threes from Aly Reiff. That start forced a timeout from Warsaw’s bench. The breather calmed things down a bit but Whitko would take a surprising 12-0 lead into the second quarter. The momentum never changed in the second frame as Whitko built its lead to 22-4 by the half.

In the first two quarters Whitko led the battle on the boards 14-12 and had seven turnovers to Warsaw’s dozen.

Whitko started a little slow to start the second half, which prompted a quick timeout from coach Brandon Bradley.

“It’s hard to differentiate when you’ve got a team like Warsaw down that much at halftime as opposed to another team that doesn’t play the schedule Warsaw does,” Bradley said. “We could play another team with the same record, but that 0-6 is a lot different than Warsaw’s 0-6 against a top-10 type of schedule like they play. It’s hard to know, coming out in the second half, what kind of energy to exert or how to finish.

“I thought we went through a stretch at the beginning of the third quarter where we got sloppy and I called a timeout very early because I wanted them to understand that we had to take care of the ball. Five shots and Warsaw would’ve been back in that game. Luckily we tightened it up a little bit and finished the game.”

Warsaw continued to struggle offensively in the third quarter, outside of Kenzie’s Welk’s eight points. Whitko extended its lead to 33-12 by the start of the fourth. At that point the hole was too big for the Tigers to get out of, though the offensive effort did improve for the orange and black.

Warsaw’s missed shots early and careless turnovers were the biggest difference as both teams ended up with 16 turnovers, but Whitko scored 20 points off of the Tigers mistakes. Warsaw scored just four points off turnovers. For the game Whitko went 8-11 from the free throw line, Warsaw was 4-10. The Tigers hit two shots from the arc, Whitko sank six. Warsaw finished the night just 11-40 from the floor.

Reiff led all scorers with 19 points. Jen Reiff had seven for Whitko, three other players had six points. Eight players total scored for the Wildcats in the game. Warsaw was led by Welk’s eight points. Mariah Rivera added seven, Madi Graham had five.

The win over Warsaw was the first for any of the girls on Whitko’s roster and the first for Bradley in his tenure in South Whitley. The coach said that allowed the team to cross another “oh-for” team off the list. That list included five teams at the beginning of the year, all five of which had not been beaten by Whitko in the past five years. The list is now down to three with wins over Columbia City and Warsaw already crossed off. Wabash, Norwell and Tippecanoe Valley still remain.

Whitko (6-1) will play at Fort Wayne Northrop Wednesday night. Warsaw (0-6) will host Norwell Tuesday night.

Warsaw won the JV contest 41-25. Miah Holsclaw and Maddie Ryman each had 11 points for Warsaw. Brook Christoffel led Whitko with eight points.