WAELDER WILDCATS

Top Cats: Waelder continues to lead district with impressive wins

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WAELDER — Waelder extended their win streak to stay on top of District 30-1A after knocking off #15 Dime Box last Friday 72-53. The #13 Wildcats are unbeaten in district using their defense as well as their quickness on offense to overwhelm their opponents.

“It’s another statement game here,” Waelder head coach David Graves said. “We don’t ever want to lose here. This is our home court. We’ve lost here one time, thankfully, and that was the Hempstead game. We lost at the buzzer, literally at the buzzer, because we made a dumb mistake. [This win] means a lot to my seniors because they’re not going to forget we own our floor. It’s Waelder, we’re protecting Waelder, you’re not going to come in here and beat us.”

Dime Box’s only lead came in the second quarter with a Long Horns three pointer with 6:20 left in the half. Two minutes later the Wildcats tied the game, then later took a lead they’d keep for the rest of the game. But with the team up just six at the end of the second quarter, Graves opted to make some changes to extend their lead in the second half.

“We made some adjustments within our personnel and guarding wise, within our offense of what they were giving us that we didn’t take advantage the first time in terms of seals and screens,” he explained. “And then we did a lot better job of ball movement. I thought we did a lot better job. Defensively, the first half we were doing things that we normally don’t do because they were getting hesitant with how fast they were. I told the guys to stick to our principles and everything will finish itself. We did that the second half and obviously it showed. I was really proud of the adjustments that we made. That was really good by everybody. Everybody knew the game plan and everybody stuck to it at half and it paid off for everybody.”

The Wildcats would outscore Dime Box 24-10 in the third quarter to extend their lead to 20 points, a hole the visiting Long Horns could not climb out.

Leading the scoring for the Wildcats was Isaiah Miller with 31 points. Colby Thorne and Junior Satterwhite each added 14 points while Jacovan Fields, named homecoming king at the half, added 13.

Graves added that the team’s offense “feeds off our defense.”

“Our guys are getting a lot better mentally disciplined on the offensive end,” he said, “understanding the lead [means] the game is in our hands. We can be patient and get the looks we want to get, and knock the shots we want to knock down.”

The Wildcats remain unbeaten in district after winning 81-73 against Prairie Lea on Tuesday.  Waelder travels to take on Round Top-Carmine this Friday and then Moulton next Tuesday.

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District 30-1A boys hoops
  W L %
Waelder 7 0 1.000
Dime Box 5 1 0.833
Round Top-Carmine 5 2 0.714
Moulton 4 3 0.571
Fayetteville 1 6 0.143
Prairie Lea 2 5 0.286
McDade 0 7 0.000

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