Whitmire wins a nail-bitter against Newberry Academy

NEWBERRY — Whitmire varsity boys’ basketball picked up their first win of the young season. The Wolverines(1-5) defeated Newberry Academy(0-3) by the score of 29-25 on Wednesday, Dec. 10th in a tight battle to get their first win on the season.

The two teams met for the first time this season after their December 2nd meeting was canceled and this inter-county rivalry lived up to the hype. It wasn’t a high scoring battle between the two teams, but it was a competitive game.

The first quarter started with the Wolverines opening the game knocking down back-to-back three pointers to jump out to a 6-1 lead. They would go into the second quarter with a 11-5 lead.

The Eagles began to make a comeback at the beginning of the second quarter and jumped out to a 6-0 run to tie the game at 11-11 before Whitmire was forced to call a timeout. Senior forward Caleb Wilbanks began to make his presence felt during that mini run by scoring back-to-back baskets and getting a huge block on the defensive end of the floor.

The two teams would exchange blows, but Newberry Academy would end the half with another huge three-point basket by Wilbanks to give them a 18-15 lead at halftime.

Neither team could buy a basket in the third quarter and both had trouble with ball security on the offensive end. Newberry Academy still held a slim 21-19 going into the final quarter.

The fourth quarter was a struggle for the home team on the offensive end. The Eagles only scored four points in the final quarter and went nearly five minutes without making a basket to open the period.

Whitmire began to make enough shots to eventually put the game away. Junior point guard Kaden Malpass knocked down a huge three-pointer to give the Wolverines the lead, 22-21. Their run continued as they were able to turn defense into offense. Freshman guard Ayden Hopp hit a floater in the lane off the steal to extend the Wolverines lead, 23-19.

The visitors went on a 9-1 run before the Newberry Academy was forced to call a timeout late in the game. The Eagles now trailed 28-22 coming out of the timeout and Wilbanks hit another deep.three-pointer to cut the lead down to just three points. Of course, Newberry Academy had to play the foul game and it worked because Whitmire missed both free throws to give the Eagles one last chance to possibly tie the game.

Newberry Academy had about 15 seconds following the timeout and were able to get two good looks for the possible game-tying shot but missed both of them and fell at home.

“We got to score the ball better. We shot 20 percent and went maybe 2-of-25 from three and 4-of-11 from the free throw line. We had a chance there at the end, I mean we had a good look at it from three but just went in-and-out,” said Eagles head coach Scott Gardner. “That’s been the story of our season so far. We are playing hard and I think we played really good defensively but we got to score the ball better and that’s all there is to it. You can’t win a game shooting 20 percent.”

The Wolverines had four players score five or more points in this game. Hopp led the way with eight points and Malpass added seven points along with five assists. Senior forward Jay’veyon Sligh had five points and nine rebounds as well.

“We got to be able to score. We struggled early in this season and we had a pretty tough schedule so far with some good non-region teams We found our rhythm these past couple of games but we went a little cold to start the night,” said Wolverines head coach Noah Armstrong. “We had like four points in the second quarter but the big thing was not turning the ball over and being able to get the ball inside. We started taking jump shots that weren’t ours but once we got everything working inside we eventually came out with it.”

Whitmire will be back in action on Friday, Dec. 12th to face Calhoun Falls Charter at home. Newberry Academy will be off for a few days before returning to the court in a road battle against Laurens Academy on Monday, Dec. 15th.