Jordan Bechtold brings the ball up the court for Columbia City in Tuesday’s game at Wawasee. (Photos by Nick Goralczyk)

SYRACUSE — The Wawasee boys basketball team can finally come up for air. The Warriors took a thumping from rival Warsaw Friday then turned around to host a very talented Columbia City team Tuesday evening. The seasoned Eagles team used its experience and height advantage to claim a 54-35 victory.

Friday night’s game could have completely derailed Wawasee for the rest of the season. How the Warriors responded Tuesday would say a lot about the team’s mental toughness. The Warriors did not cower or just go through the motions but rather put up a fight in a game that they had little chance to win.

City opened on a 7-0 run but quickly found Wawasee nipping on its heels. A careless turnover by the Warriors in the closing seconds of the first quarter led to a buzzer-beating basket from City’s Brachen Hazen. Hazen’s bucket gave the Eagles a 13-6 advantage.

Hazen, a 6’8″ Central Florida commit, was the biggest mismatch for Wawasee all night. The senior scored a game-high 19 points and also led all players with nine boards. Hazen’s younger brother, Parker, is a 6’7″ junior that recorded 12 points and five rebounds to help the City attack.

The second quarter is where City was able to expose its advantages over the Warriors and would outscore its opponent 19-5 in the frame. With a 32-11 score at the break, the game was all but decided but that didn’t stop Wawasee from fighting in the second half.

The Warriors found more of a groove offensively in the final two frames and were able to keep the Hazen brothers from wreaking total havoc in the paint. Wawasee also cut back on its turnovers, committing just four in the second half compared to six in the first two quarters. The Warriors ended up outscoring the Eagles 24-22 in the final two frames.

The mistakes made in the second quarter ultimately doomed the Green and Gold but the overall performance from Wawasee in Tuesday game was encouraging given the mess that fans saw in the Tiger Den just four nights earlier.

“I was very proud of their response,” Wawasee coach Steve Wiktorowski said of his players. “Starting on Saturday we came back and the kids didn’t hang their heads and we looked at what we needed to fix, a lot of it was simple things. We improved on a lot of that stuff tonight.

“We still have to work on turnovers but we just had 10 tonight. I thought we battled well on the boards and I was very impressed with our post defense. We made them work for their points inside. We didn’t give them many easy looks, they just had a huge height advantage.

“I also thought our offense showed some sparks here and there and that’s encouraging.”

Jayce Boatwright led Wawasee with 12 points. Cayden Wegener added seven and led the team with four rebounds.

Wiktorowski made it a point that this team does not put much stock in moral victories but that the performance in the second half of Tuesday’s game can be used to build on once the team gets back from break.

Wawasee (1-6) will play at John Glen on Jan. 2. City (4-3) will play in the Columbia City/Huntington North Tournament on Dec. 29.

Wawasee’s JV continued its hot start to the season with a 31-19 win. John Kennedy and Will Geer led Wawasee with nine points each.