This past Saturday, February 22, the Westside boys basketball team ended their regular season play against one of the top teams in the state in Omaha Central. Going into the match-up, these two teams lined up back to back in the NSAA Wild Card Standings. In the fourth spot, the Warriors were just 0.05 Wild Card points behind Central going into the game and one win would push them up to third. With districts just one week away, this would be the last shot for either team to gain positioning for district play. 

The Warriors, who have fed off fast-paced scoring this season, would hold a consistent lead in the first half behind 17 points by Jadin Booth along with PJ Ngambi with 12. The defense would also hold both of Central’s stars in Max Polk and Latrell Wrightsell Jr. to each under 10 points in the first half. With a nine point lead headed into the break, the Warriors looked to continue their gameplan going into the final 16 minutes of play. Head Coach Jim Simons had planned for the fast paced game and said he thought it truly helped them early in the ballgame.

“The pace was what we thought it would be. Both teams like to play fast,” Simons said. “It’s how we wanna play and how they wanna play. Both teams with a lot of talented guys making plays out there was good to see.”

Coming out of half, the Warriors would keep steady with their lead and stretched it to 14 points with just 3:09 left to go in the third with a Jadin Booth steal and layup. Eagles coach Eric Behrens would quickly call a timeout and change-up the game plan with just 11 minutes to go into the ballgame.

Out of that break, the Eagles would slowly chip away and get back into the ball game. With the defense switching to full-court press, they would force multiple Warrior turnovers and turn them into easy layups. Going on a 12-0 run, the Eagles would cut the deficit down to two going into the ladder minutes of the fourth quarter. With the eagles, continuing their full court press, Westside wasn’t able to get their offense back to first half shape. With just 54 seconds to go, another Warrior turnover would allow PJ Davis to put up a layup to give Central its first lead of the night at 74-73. Central would hold onto the lead in the late seconds and complete the 14 point comeback, 79-77. Senior Carl Brown, in his second game back from a concussion, said he felt that the team just didn’t do what they needed to do late into the game.

“I think our effort was just as good as any time we’ve played. We just gotta learn how to play smarter in the fourth quarter,” Brown said. “Basketball’s a game of runs. I think we just have to handle runs better. Staying calm when the other team goes on a run and keep our cool.”

Going into districts, the Warriors will host their district games at Westside, keeping ahold of the fourth spot in the rankings. Brown said he feels that their lack of height of all things might give them the advantage in preparation.

“We’ve had to work the same thing all year. I think for us, we need to keep preparing well and I think it will be harder for other teams to prepare for us. They don’t work on playing against five guards all year. We work on the same thing as everybody has a big and we have to work on rebounding and post defense,” Brown said. “Mismatches work both ways and we have to guard them but they also have to guard us and I like our mismatches better than theirs.”

The Warriors will start district this Saturday February 28th at 5:00 p.m. against a team still undecided.