In an all-KCII battle Thursday in Winfield the Winfield-Mt. Union Wolves and Hillcrest Academy Ravens split a Southeast Iowa Superconference basketball doubleheader. The WMU girls took the win by a 53-25 score. The Ravens scored the first basket of the game and from there the half belonged to the Wolves. They outscored Hillcrest 38-7 the rest of the first half to take a 29 point lead into the locker room. Out of the break, the Wolves enacted the continuous clock three minutes into the third and coasted to the win. After the contest, WMU head girls coach Mitch Wachs talked about his team’s success. “We view defensive rebounding like making a basket at the end of an offensive possession. If you don’t finish with a defensive rebound you have to start playing defense all over again. We have a great group of rebounders this year and some size. We were able to create offense off of our defense. I wanted to work on our half court offense. We did a good job getting the ball inside. We did get a little quick inside and missed a few but overall I was happy with our execution.”
Farrah Nelson went double double to lead the Wolves with 12 points and 11 rebounds. Jobey Malone and Bradie Buffington added 10. Nine total players scored. Esther Hughes led the Ravens with 13 points, Yani Guttierez added 11. With the win, the Wolves are now 10-8 the Ravens 1-15.
In the boys contest the Ravens finished a season sweep of the Wolves 59-45. Hillcrest enjoyed a 20-11 lead after one quarter and stretched that to 38-22 at half and to as many as 19 in the third quarter. The Wolves made a push in the fourth getting within 48-40 before the Ravens put it on ice with an 11-2 run down the stretch. After the game Hillcrest head coach Dwight Gingerich talked about how his team closed. “That run was critical. They were chipping away and hitting some big shots. It felt like we were a little bit out of sorts before that. Oepping and Piper made some big plays to get them back in it. We were able to contest shots and get them to miss a few to get momentum back. Eli (Ours) was in a zone early hitting some threes then Luke Schrock came in off the bench and knocked down a big one.”
Eli Ours and Kobe Borntrager each had 20 to lead Hillcrest. The Ravens climb above .500 at 8-7 on the year. Daunte Oepping led the Wolves with 17 points. The Wolves are now 4-12.