West Shamokin Fights Back, but Loses a Close Game Against Freeport

by Jake DeLuca

The West Shamokin Wolves (6-7, 4-2) boys varsity basketball team hosted the Freeport Yellow Jackets (8-4, 1-1) on Wednesday night in a hard fought game that was topped off by an exciting final two minutes in the fourth quarter.

The Wolves started this game in a bit of a shooting slump, only scoring 4 points in the opening quarter while Freeport jumped out to an early 12 point lead behind some sharp three point shooting.

After the first quarter the Wolves found their offense, outscoring Freeport 16-11 in the second quarter to cut the lead to 27-20 heading into half-time.

Coming out of half-time West Shamokin seemed to hit their stride as they went on a 15-2 run to start the third quarter, taking the lead for the first time in the game.

The Wolves were up 35-29 with around 2:00 minutes remaining in the third before the Yellow Jackets hit their first bucket of the quarter, a three-pointer to draw within 3 points of West Shamokin.

West Shamokin Head Coach Jud McCullough said it was not anything he did really to spark his team’s run in the third, they just wanted it.

“We settled down a little bit, executed better, we spaced the floor out a little bit to try and get kids into open space, because (Freeport) was coming to trap us. We had guys moving a little bit better to the ball and making good decisions to finish. Momentum is a funny thing, I don’t think we did a whole lot, the kids just played their way out of it,” McCullough said.

Turnovers down the stretch hurt West Shamokins’ chances of winning the game, McCullough explained.

“Turnovers were a very deciding factor tonight and that was from the beginning to the very end. We just tend to rev a little bit too high, and I would rather have a team that wants it and squeezes a little to hard than a team I have to really fire up. They want it now, we just have to calm down and learn to deal with that type of swarming pressure and handle it a little bit better,” McCullough said.

The Wolves were unable to close the game out at home, falling to the Yellow Jackets 56-52.

West Shamokin will have until next Friday to prepare for Homer-Center (7-5, 4-2) in a Heritage Conference match-up at West Shamokin set for 7:30 PM.

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