Coming into Tuesday night, the fifth-ranked Westside and third-ranked Bellevue West boys basketball teams had hopes of getting a little more secure in upcoming district placement. 

With yet another top ten matchup for these two teams, on paper, the game seemed to be fairly even on both sides, it turned out to be one of the most back and forth games of the season for the Warriors. After Friday night’s original time was moved to Tuesday night due to snow, both teams scored big wins over the weekend before preparing for their rescheduled matchup.

Both teams came out of the gate came out with a very fast-paced offense trying to beat the other team to the lane in order to open up shots. After a tied 17-17 ball-game through one quarter, they went back and forth on large runs throughout the last three quarters in regulation. Down by seven with under 3 minutes to go in the fourth quarter, some costly Thunderbird mistakes would allow the Warriors to tie the game at 76 as time expired. 

Overtime.

In the extra period, both teams didn’t let up in their fast-paced, scrappy game. With just under seven seconds left in overtime, the Warriors held the ball with a one point lead. A turnover and foul allowed star guard Chucky Hepburn to win the game, 85-84.

Led by Jadin Booth with 27 points, every player among the starting five players scored in double digit. Head Coach Jim Simons said he felt that the team really worked well together as a whole.

“It was a great high school basketball game between really good teams. We were really proud of how hard our kids competed and I felt we gave everything we had. Our effort was tremendous,” Simons said.

One noticeable part of the game was the many momentum swings that occurred throughout the night. With the game being at such a fast-tempo, said he Simons felt that a game like this was likely to happen.

“A game of runs. We talk about that all the time, especially when you’ve got two good teams playing two high-paced, up tempo offensive teams where there’s a lot of possessions in the game, “ Simons said. “They had a really good run in the third quarter and almost knocked us out, but to our kids’ credit we were knocked back but we were not knocked out. We responded extremely well in the fourth quarter which was good to see.”

In the two matchups this season against the Thunderbirds, Westside has put up a larger score in 6 of the 8 regulation quarters throughout the two games. However, in both of those games, the Warriors have had at least one rough quarter. Senior Carl Brown said he feels that without those rough quarters, they could easily have 2 more wins under their belt.

“I feel like we played very hard. I think if play as hard as we did those last two quarters, we’d be hard to beat,” said Brown. “ They have a really good team obviously, but I feel like we’re better than them. If we just play the right way for that third quarter, we would be 2-0 against them.”

The Warriors head to Millard North this Friday to go up against the second-ranked Mustangs looking to bounce back after their top ten loss.