Wildcat boys get much-needed win over Sabetha

Holton High School’s boys var­sity basketball team evened up its record with Sabetha for the 2015-16 season with an encouraging 47-38 win over the Blue Jays on Fri­day, thanks to Head Coach Ryan Noel’s halftime reminder to his team that they have to “keep be­lieving.”

At the halfway point of Friday’s winter courtwarming match against SHS, the Wildcats were coming off a weak second quarter in which the Blue Jays had outscored them 10-3. Noel said it was up to the team to keep the confidence level high and come out fighting.

“We’ve just got to keep believ­ing,” Noel said. “It’s that simple. We believed we were going to have to play pretty hard, and that was the theme of the night. Every single one of us had to believe in it, be­cause if one person had some doubt, it wasn’t going to happen.”

Friday’s game started out with a high confidence level, with the Wildcats getting out to a 16-5 lead in the first quarter.

“I don’t know if there was much strategy involved in the first quar­ter,” Noel said. “We caught a pretty good team on a bad night. They failed to get the shots, percentage­wise, and that helped us a lot.”

However, Sabetha stepped up its play in the second quarter, but Holton still led at the half by a 19-15 margin, prompting Noel’s ad­monition in the locker room that the Wildcats had to “keep believ­ing.”

The rest of the game saw the Wildcats hanging on to the lead, outscoring the Jays 28-23 in the second half, with several fourth-quarter points coming from behind the foul line, along with solid de­fensive work.

“I thought our post played really well, defensively. There were some times when we gave up some stuff, but I think we really rebounded the ball well against a team that really beat us up on the boards the last time,” he said. “Our guards did a really good job of keeping control a vast majority of the time, too.”

Junior Bryson Patch led the Wildcats in scoring with a total of 25 points, including hitting a three-pointer and going 10-13 at the free throw line. Sophomore AJ Haussler also made a double-digit contribution, hitting a pair of three-pointers and going 7-10 from the free throw line to add to a 17-point total.

The Wildcats (4-9) now prepare to play against Perry-Lecompton at home on Tuesday, aiming for their second win of the season against the Kaws. Games start at 4:30 p.m.

Scoring

Holton 16 3 11 17 — 47

Sabetha 5 10 8 15 — 38

Holton: Patch 7 (1) 10-13 25, Haussler 4 (2) 7-10 17, Brandt 1 1-2 3, Strader 1 0-2 2. Totals 13 (3) 18-31 47.

Sabetha: Keehn 7 1-1 15, Frey 4 (1) 0-0 9, Kirwan 1 5-7 7, Mont­gomery 1 (1) 0-0 3, Strahm 0 2-4 2, Gruber 1 0-0 2. Totals 14 (2) 8-12 38.