The Wayland boys’ varsity basketball team’s first loss of the season Tuesday looked eerily similar to the defeat suffered a week earlier by the girls’ squad in the Cornerstone Holiday Tournament.
The Wildcats saw their full-court pressure defense solved and broken down by Forest Hills Central and fell behind by double figures, rallied in the third and early fourth quarters, but eventually lost in the waning moments.
The Lady Wildcats lost 46-40 last Wednesday in their tourney finals to Grand Rapids Christian, essentially following the same pattern. The Wildcat guys lost 63-56.
Wayland, sparked by early scoring from Mitchell Dykstra and Zac Nieukoop did take a 9-5 lead, but the Rangers quickly tied up the score at 13 and then went on a run to grab a 23-16 advantage at the end of the first period.
It’s hard to remember a Wayland basketball outfit that’s given up as many as 23 points in eight minutes. But Forest Hills Central had tossed in five three-point bombs.
By the half, the Rangers had drilled nine treys, thanks to their ability to beat Wayland’s full-court press and get the ball quickly into the corner for open three-point attempts that fell into the hoop. Senior guard Jordan George, son of Forest Hills coach Ken George, nailed three of them and had scored 13 points by intermission. Teammate Brandon Dunn had a pair of threes and 11 points at the break.
Meanwhile, the Rangers came up with a zone defense except that a pesky defending guard followed Wayland junior Avery Hudson everywhere on the court with a sort of box-in-one. The strategy seemed to work, as Hudson did not make a single three, finished with just seven points and was frustrated enough to even miss a free throw.
Forest Hills enjoyed a 41-28 cushion at the half and even led by 16 points, 44-28, in the first minute of the third quarter on another three by George, who seemed to be deadly accurate with his left-hand, two-hand shot.
It was when the Rangers were up 50-35 that Wayland slowly began its comeback on a three-point play by Dykstra with almost a minute and a half left in the third period.
Wildcat coach Mike Hudson at the half switched from his pressuring zone to a man-to-man. Then Cody Johnson hit Jake Holtz with a pass underneath for an easy bucket. Hudson then scored on a steal and layup to bring his teammates to within eight, 50-42, just before the start of the last quarter.
Holtz then scored on a layup after getting an offensive rebound and he made good on a three-point play after getting a nice feed from Hudson underneath. Coach George called a timeout with his team up only by three, 50-47, with 6:10 left on the clock.
But three points was as close as the ‘Cats would get. They suffered two consecutive uncharacteristic defensive lapses that resulted in two easy layups to enable Forest Hills to pull away to leads of between five and nine points.
Senior center Connor Kelly swished four consecutive free throws to keep Wayland at bay down the stretch.
George cooled off a bit after his flurry of threes and finished with 18 points. Dunn had 13 points, Salim Sidebotham 10 and Kelly eight.
Senior center Zac Nieukoop netted 17 points for the Wildcats, Dykstra had 10, Holtz nine, Mike Kelly eight and Hudson seven.
Both teams ended the contest with 3-1 overall records. Wayland now will play at 6 p.m. Saturday against Rockford in the consolation contest and Forest Hills will take on Wyoming Godwin Heights at 7:30 in the finals.
PHOTO: Mitchell Dykstra (Photo courtesy of Kenny Ritz)