RUSSIAVILLE — Two weeks ago, Western stumbled at Maconaquah in its quest to maintain pace atop the Mid-Indiana Conference boys basketball standings.
Today, the Panthers control their own destiny.
Western smacked Taylor 63-43 Friday night here at Richard R. Rea Gymnasium to improve to 5-1 in the MIC and now stands half a game atop the standings. Hamilton Heights and Peru are 4-1 and both the Bengal Tigers’ and Huskies’ lone league loss were to Western.
“It was a huge game,” Western coach Andy Weaver said. “Obviously, there’s two other teams out there with one loss, and they’ll have to play each other later so we knew we had to keep pace.”
If Western wins its final league game, the Panthers clinch at least a share of the hardware.
“We have just one conference game to go and it’ll be a tough one,” Weaver said. “We have Lewis Cass coming in here [Feb. 20] and it’s a chance for our guys to play for a championship on our home floor. I’m proud of how our guys have competed in the MIC.”
The Panthers improved to 9-6 and played like a hungry squad Friday in thumping a county rival. Western bolted to a 10-0 lead on a basket from Wes White, three hoops by Matt Reida and a bucket from Stephen Truesdell over the first 4:04 of the first quarter.
Taylor coach Jeff Fisher called two timesout over that span to stop the bleeding, but the Titans never got closer than four points down the rest of the way.
“It was a great start for us,” Weaver said. “Our guys came out ready to play. I thought our defense was intact to start the game. In our first five possessions we score a bucket in each possession, so it was a great start.”
The Panthers led 15-11 at the first stop with Reida sparking the team with nine points. He ended up tying his career best with 18.
Taylor narrowed the gap to 27-21 late in the second quarter but Western’s White hit a triple from the right side, then snuck in for a rebound bucket at the buzzer to push Western’s lead to 32-21 at halftime.
“I thought those five points were huge,” Weaver said of White’s 5-0 closing run.
Western scored the first six points of the second half and Taylor never got the deficit to single digits again.
“Sometimes you just get your butt kicked and that’s what it was, a butt kicking,” Taylor coach Jeff Fisher said.
It was a deflating outing for the Titans (6-8 overall, 2-3 MIC). Fisher wanted to get the ball inside but post players Tyler Simmons and Drake Herr got few looks. When they did get a few open chances in the third quarter, Taylor was already well behind. The Western defense was conscious of their threat and Weaver said his players worked well to limit Taylor’s post looks.
“Simmons and Herr are good offensive threats and we really tried to dig hard on them, and I thought we did a pretty good job,” Weaver said, noting the Panthers still had to watch out for Taylor’s outside threat. “We lost some guys behind us a couple times there in the second half but overall our guys did a good job collapsing on their post players.”
“Western did a good job. Andy did a great job,” Fisher said of Western’s defense. “We are not doing a good job.”
On the other side it was an efficient night for the Panthers, who hit 27 of 44 shots. After Reida’s 18, Darrian Greene scored a dozen, White scored 11 and Quin Fields added eight.
White led Western with six rebounds as the Panthers outrebounded Taylor 25-20. Weaver was especially pleased to see his squad commit just seven turnovers against a Taylor squad that can apply strong pressure. By the time it was over, Weaver had plenty to be happy about.
“When you have seven turnovers and shoot 61 percent from the field, and you outrebound a team, good things are going to happen,” he said.
Drake Herr led Taylor with 11 points. Seth Vautaw added nine and Reomey Northington had seven.
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