Western Boone Jr. - Sr. High School

Western Boone head coach Jason Smith knew a day like this could be coming, where his Stars didn’t have a great shooting game. Through the first five games of the season, the Stars were shooting nearly 50% from the field and 40% from 3, both well ahead of the national average. But on Saturday afternoon at Morristown’s Hoops for Hope Holiday Classic, the shots weren’t falling at their normal rate, and the Stars suffered a pair of losses to South Decatur (71-59) and Milan (68-66). “We didn’t shoot the ball well, which I knew was going to come eventually, because we have been shooting lights out the whole season,” Smith said. “Today was a ‘let’s find another way to win besides shooting,’ and we weren’t able to do so. That’s something we’ll have to do, maybe there is a sectional game down the road that we’re not shooting well and we just have to find ways to play better when we aren’t hitting 3s.” Some defensive lapses partnered with cold-shooting spells cost the Stars in both games. In game one, the Stars led 36-27 heading into the half, playing the way they had during a three-game winning streak heading into the holiday break. But in the third quarter, they allowed 23 points (the total they scored in the entire half), and saw the deficit grow throughout the fourth quarter. In the second game against Milan, the issues started a quarter earlier. The Stars dominated the first quarter, leading by double digits most of the way and holding a 24-16 lead heading to the second quarter. But in the second quarter, the Stars were outscored 21-3, and suddenly found themselves down 10. “We trapped more and did some more diamond-pressing, and I don’t like to do that too often because if they beat it, it’s a lot of easy layups,” Smith said. “But I felt like we had to manufacture some energy at times, because we were pretty dead energy wise today. So the result of extending is giving some stuff up on the back end.” freestar If there was a positive on the day, it was a the way the Stars battled back in the second half against Milan. They cut the lead to six heading to the fourth, and after falling behind nine early in the fourth, used a 7-0 run to get back with two at 58-56 less than two minutes into the quarter. Milan went up 62-56 midway through the quarter, but the Stars battled back, tying the game with a putback from Jaden Latham with 41.1 to go. Milan held the ball the rest of the game, and missed a driving layup at the buzzer, but the Stars were called for a foul with 0.8 seconds left. The Indians hit both free throws to win the game. “If played like we did in the second half, we win that game by 20 or 25,” Smith said. “It’s a challenge to them for future games to start off better in the first half and we can go for them. Jaden Latham had great energy in the second half (scoring 14 of his 17 points) and didn’t come out because of that. We just need more guys to have that energy the whole time and bring that spark so that we can make a run like we were able to do there.” In game one, Tristyn Faulk led the Stars with 17, with Luke LaGrange scoring 14 and Quinn Westerfeld nine. Westerfeld led the way with 20 in game two, with Faulk adding 10 to go along with Latham’s 17. The Stars, now 3-4 on the year, will have two weeks to prepare for the Sugar Creek Classic on January 9 and 10 at Crawfordsville. “Our offense has gotten really stagnant, so we are going to work on different things we can do out of it, and different reads out of it, because now teams are preparing for it and guarding it in different ways,” Smith said. “We are going to go through the different options they have in the offense and getting it moving so we’re not so stagnant and just watching people play all the time.” Will Willems is the Sports Editor of the Lebanon Reporter. Follow him on Twitter @Will_Willems.