×

West Branch hustles past Canfield

Staff photo / Joe Simon West Branch’s Jarrod Rose, right, dribbles while being pressured by Canfield’s Chase Lowry during their game Friday. The Warriors won, 54-33.

CANFIELD — Jaxon Hendershot was ticked off, and apparently so were the rest of the West Branch Warriors.

West Branch only trailed by one point going into halftime of a non-conference game with Canfield, but it wasn’t necessarily the score that had the Warriors upset. It was that the Cardinals were playing harder.

“The 50-50 balls, we should be getting those,” said Hendershot, a junior guard for West Branch. “They should be 100-percent balls. We didn’t go over that before the game, which we should have. Their energy, we kind of fed off it. They kind of ticked us off, and we fed off that, too.”

It was a feeding frenzy for West Branch in the second half.

Hendershot sparked a huge third-quarter run, scoring 15 of his game-high 29 points, and the Warriors showed some feistiness in the second half of 54-33 victory that was rather chippy at times.

Staff photo / Joe Simon West Branch’s Jaxon Hendershot (4) celebrates during a timeout. Hendershot scored a game-high 29 points in a win over Canfield.

West Branch and Canfield have created a bit of a rivalry over the last few years, and the competitiveness was evident in the physical play of both teams. The Cardinals were the catalyst in the first half, holding a 20-19 lead despite some rough shooting. They made up for it with rebounding and defense, forcing West Branch into 11 turnovers.

That energy riled up the Warriors, who came out with a different attitude in the second half.

“We know the toughness that Canfield plays with,” West Branch coach Michael Brown said. “We thought that they got more 50-50 balls in the first half. We discussed that at halftime, and we wanted to make sure we came out in the third quarter and played with more grit. I thought we did that. We started to get the 50-50 balls in the second half. When you do that, often times, the basketball gods will take care of you. Shots suddenly start falling, there’s suddenly more energy in the ball and that’s kind of what happened tonight.”

Hendershot is what happened in the third quarter.

The 6-foot shooting guard made all five of his shots and was 3-for-3 from the free-throw line, scoring 12 straight points as he took the Warriors on a 12-2 run. Of equal importance was the tenacious defense of West Branch, which held Canfield to 2-of-13 shooting in the quarter and 12-of-40 for the game.

Staff photo / Joe Simon Canfield’s Trey Dye (11) dribbles while being defended by West Branch’s Josh Gregory on Friday in Canfield.

“It’s just a mentality,” Hendershot said of his big second half. “If I don’t shoot well, I’m just going to keep shooting. I keep that mentality. Tonight, the energy really (helped). Our defense was stopping them, and then the offense kicked up. Patience too. In the first half, we were kind of sloppy on the offensive side. This time, we were a lot more patient and looking for good shots.”

Canfield couldn’t rekindle its first-half momentum.

No one scored more than seven points for the Cardinals (Chase Lowry and Trey Dye each scored seven). They made just 3-of-16 3-pointers and were 6-of-13 from the free-throw line. The offense couldn’t find any sort of rhythm after a brief spurt in the second quarter, the defense lost its energy early in the second half and the Cardinals came unraveled — with a technical foul and a delay of game.

“Them not giving us good looks is the reason why we missed those shots,” Canfield coach Todd Muckleroy said. “They amped up the pressure, did a nice job and we just didn’t. They did a real nice job in the second half, and we couldn’t find the bottom of the basket.”

Muckleroy noticed the spirited play as well.

He’s a 1992 West Branch graduate, so while the loss might sting a bit more, he enjoys the competitiveness between the teams.

“I don’t know why that is,” said Muckleroy of the budding rivalry. “I don’t think it really comes from me because certainly I still have a lot of good friends back in the Beloit area, but it’s a good rivalry. … It’s a no-brainer as far as these two teams playing. West Branch still has good, hard-working kids, and I like to think we have good, hard-working kids too. It’s always a pretty good matchup, even though the score didn’t necessarily indicate it tonight.'”

NEWSLETTER

Today's breaking news and more in your inbox

I'm interested in (please check all that apply)
Are you a paying subscriber to the newspaper? *
   

Starting at $4.85/week.

Subscribe Today