Hornets Leave Warriors With Stinging Feeling
SYRACUSE — Chalk this one up to growing pains.
Wawasee hosted Angola for its boys basketball home opener Saturday night and, to put it simply, it was a much better night for the visiting squad. It was the Hornets first game of the season but they brought the kind of energy most teams have in the sectional to capture a 56-30 win over the Warriors.
In Tuesday night’s opener it was safe to say that Wawasee, a team breaking in virtually an entirely new roster from last season, pleasantly surprised people with a solid performance on the road against Fairfield. Saturday night was far from the same as the Warriors showed too many characteristics of an inexperienced squad.
Wawasee looked to take an early 6-5 lead, but turned the ball over and fell behind 7-4. It was all downhill after that. Angola led 14-5 after the first and 26-10 at half, and had control over every ounce of momentum. The Hornets were able to grab the lead, and momentum by forcing several turnovers and completely taking away the paint from the Warriors.
Angola tallied five blocks in the first half, each and every one happened right under Wawasee’s basket and was met with ecstatic appraisal from a Hornet bench that would have rivaled Monmouth, which is a reference only college basketball fans will get.
A 16-point deficit was far from the end of the world, but Wawasee was just completely out of rhythm and struggling to score following a stretch of forced shots that the Warriors would love to get back. There was no lack of effort from the Warriors, but there was a lack of chemistry for a team still trying to figure itself out. Again, chalk it up as a growing pain.
Short and often empty possessions often led to bad transitions on defense for the Warriors, which allowed Angola too many easy buckets. Any time where Wawasee even sniffed momentum, the Hornets answered with a big shot to take the wind right back out of the sails. When the Warriors were able to set up on defense, they cause issues for the Hornets, but with an inability to answer offensively, Wawasee was not able to give itself a chance after digging a big hole.
The negatives of Saturday’s game were obvious, it was a bad night for a young team early in the season. It’s nothing to panic about.
“I thought there were two clear positives from tonight’s game,” said Wawasee head coach Steve Wiktorowski when asked for something favorable he saw. “Our effort was great, all night, starting from the very beginning. In fact, I thought, if anything, offensively we tried a little bit too hard. We tried to force some things instead of letting the offense work by itself.
“And number two, I thought we played pretty good defense. They’re a pretty talented team. They exposed some things on us defensively, but I think there was still a lot we made them work for. I thought overall those were two things for us to build on as an inexperienced team. We have to stay patient with the offense because that’s what takes the most time to develop.”
Wawasee was led by 12 points from Tyler Smith, Cayden Wegener added eight. Angola had three players in double digits, led by Jake Honer’s 16.
Wawasee won the JV contest 43-42. The Warriors were led by nine points each from Ryan Edginton, Bennett Hoffert and Will Geer. Angola was led by Luke Honer’s 21.
Wawasee (0-2) will host Manchester (1-1) Friday night.