Wayland led visiting Forest Hills Eastern all night Tuesday, but near the end almost gave up the basketball game.
The Wildcats, welcoming head coach Mike Hudson back on the sidelines after a six-game hiatus, managed to pull out a 68-63 triumph over their O-K Gold Conference rival to lift their league record to 2-3 and 5-6 overall. The Hawks, meanwhile, fell to 0-5 in the Gold and 3-7 overall.
Wayland enjoyed a 37-27 10-point cushion at intermission and widened the gap to 13 points, 44-31 with a little more than five minutes left in the third quarter before lapsing on offense and committing turnovers Forest Hills turned into layups.
If the Hawks would have been able to sink their free throws down the stretch, things might have turned out differently.
It was clutch free throw shooting by junior center Cory Ainsworth who made six at the charity stripe in the last four minutes, despite twice missing on the front end of a one-and-one.
The dagger that hurt Forest Hills the most, however was a three-bomb by senior forward Carter Nyp, as he so often does. His three with 3:30 left on the clock put Wayland up 63-54 and made the Hawks’ dreams of a comeback win unlikely.
The Wildcats were impressive in fits and starts in the first 16 minutes, jumping out to a 7-2 lead on a three by Nyp and a couple of driving layups by junior forward Jack Donewald. Forest Hills climbed back into the contest on the strength of burly 6-4 senior forward Nick Hakken, who collected a dozen of the visitors’ 15 points in the first period.
With two successful driving layups by Nyp and Seth Sevenski-Popma in the last minute of the second quarter, Wayland extended its lead to 10.
But sophomore guard Solomon White was just getting started, and he engineered the Hawks’ slow and steady process of closing the gap in the second half. They got as close as three, 54-51, in the first minute and 15 seconds of the final period before Ainsworth nailed four free throws in a row.
White finished with a game-high 25 points, Hakken was slowed to chip in 18 and 6-4 Taylor Mitchell, who didn’t even start, counted 10.
Nyp collected 21 points fore the ‘Cats, Ainsworth had 14 after a slow start and Donewald had 10 before fouling out.
It was the second straight time freshman Riley Fields, just up from the junior varsity, saw varsity action.
Wayland will resume action in the O-K Gold with a game at South Christian Friday evening.
COVER PHOTO:
Coach Mike Hudson was back on the sidelines after a six-game absence to tend to family matters.
(Photos courtesy of Kenny Ritz)