The Columbus Wildcats were looking to close the gap on a previous 6-point loss Thursday night. Instead, the gap got wider, with the Van Buren County Warriors taking a 62-37 victory in the SEISC Shootout.

Not much seemed to go right for the Wildcats on Thursday. The game opened up with a 2-0 Van Buren lead, and although Columbus tied it back up at 2-2, a three-pointer the other way would give the last lead change of the night. A full court press from the Warriors nearly shut down the Wildcats entirely, with the Warriors pulling in steal after steal and allowing Columbus very little in the way of offensive opportunity. Foul trouble kept Columbus guards Iris Garza and Isabel Rendon out of the game for large stretches of time, only exacerbating the issue. Van Buren led 18-7 after the first, and kept that double-digit lead, 33-20, into halftime.

In the second half, Columbus proved that it wasn’t going to go down without swinging, with Kennedy Woepking in particular dropping 10 of the Wildcats’ 11 points in the third quarter. However, Van Buren continued to be a step quicker, outpacing Columbus in both the third and fourth quarters to pick up the 25-point win.

Woepking led the Wildcats with 20 of their 37 points. Van Buren had three in double-digits, including Adalyn Snowgren, who led all scorers with 22. Marlee Mertens had 18, including five three-pointers, and Sophia Jirak had 12.

Columbus head coach Kasey Keltner says that Van Buren had the defensive edge on this night. “I think it was their alignment. They knew exactly where our kids were gonna be at. I thought they also, they were going very hard and getting to spots before we were. I also thought they had good high hands and taking away passing angles. So, I thought that gave us a lot of trouble.”

The Wildcats drop to 10-10 for the season, and have their five-game winning streak snapped. Van Buren improves to 14-7 for the year. Columbus will wrap up their regular season against Cardinal on Monday.