It was senior night in Cumberland for East Webster, but the four senior starters spent most of the second half on the bench.
The Wolverines were in command of Vardaman most of the way, but head coach Michael Seger wanted to see more effort out of his seniors Charlie Brand, Art Thompson, Jacob Ginn and Isaac Patterson.
Because of that, the bench played most of the second half in a 60-43 comfortable win that Seger hopes will motivate the players that got his team in position to being one of the top Class 2A teams in the state.
“We’ve got a great group of seniors and they’re good kids," Seger said. "They set a really high standard for themselves and we expect them to play to our standard on the floor. At times, they were inconsistent with that. As opposed to getting hurt going through the motions, we opted to put them on the bench and cheer for their teammates.”
East Webster (18-5) was led in the game by the one starter who wasn’t celebrating senior night. Guard Carrin Townsend had a productive 16-point evening hitting 7-of-9 shots. Thompson continued his trend of good starts with 15 points on 6-of-10.
It looked early on like the Wolverines and Thompson would be putting up big-time numbers against the Rams when they jumped out to an 16-0 lead. Thompson had three 3-pointers during that stretch and had 11 points in the first quarter as the Wolverines had a 21-6 lead.
Things got sloppy for the starters in the second quarter as they managed just nine points and were outscored by four to have the lead cut to 30-19 at the break.
Seger had his starters in the game for the first 3 minutes as they came out hot on an 11-2 run to make it 41-21. He subbed four new players up by 21 and those four along with a couple of others rotated the rest of the game.
Townsend and sophomore Sedrick Taylor helped command the next quarter and a half and they held a 56-35 lead after three before cruising to the win.
“It was really good for them," Seger said of the bench. "I thought they ran our offense well and competed on the glass,” Seger said of the bench. “It’s a good problem too have when you’re up by 20 and you have the luxury of resting seniors of that caliber.”
While it was symbolically senior night, the Wolverines still have one more regular season home game left as they host Houston on Tuesday.
Girls Game
East Webster 50, Vardaman 40
The Lady Wolverines (13-10) used one of its best first quarters of the year to help springboard them into a big win over the Lady Rams.
East Webster shot 9-of-14 from the floor in the first frame to jump out to a 21-9 lead that it wouldn’t lose the whole game. The Wolverines led 28-17 at halftime and 41-31 at the end of three quarters never allowing Vardaman to close the lead.
“Vardaman is always a really hard game for us," Seger said. "They beat us earlier in the year. They’re just a matchup problem for us and our girls really bought into what we wanted to do on both ends of the floor. I thought it was one of our better games.”
Isha Patterson finished with 16 points to lead all scorers and Mari-Todd Brown had 12 points on four 3-pointers. Brown and Mikeria Clark were honored after the game as the only two seniors on the squad.