Warrenton unable to sustain strong start in home loss

John Rohlf, Sports Editor
Posted 1/25/23

The Warrenton Warriors were within striking distance in the final quarter but ultimately dropped a home GAC North matchup to St. Charles West last week. 

Warrenton (9-8) fell to St. Charles …

This item is available in full to subscribers.

Please log in to continue

Log in

Warrenton unable to sustain strong start in home loss

Posted

The Warrenton Warriors were within striking distance in the final quarter but ultimately dropped a home GAC North matchup to St. Charles West last week. 

Warrenton (9-8) fell to St. Charles West 45-32 Friday night in the first of the conference foes’ scheduled matchups. Warrenton is now 3-3 in GAC North games this season. 

Warrenton started the game with baskets on their first three possessions. Troy Anderson, Deadrick Forrest and Tyler Oliver each scored two points early to give Warrenton a 6-0 lead. Oliver converted another basket later in the quarter to give Warrenton an early 8-0 lead. 

“They’re a very athletic team that really likes to get after it on defense,” Warrenton boys basketball coach Mark Thomas said. “So we fed into that and we had a couple looks that were going to be back door looks because we fake one way and then they bite on it and then they did. But then, once they decided to play solid defense and stay in front of us, that kind of slowed us down a little bit.”

St. Charles West ended the first quarter on an 8-2 run to pull within two points at the end of the first quarter. 

The two teams played a back-and-forth second quarter, with both Warrenton and St. Charles West holding leads in the quarter. With Warrenton leading 16-14, St. Charles West guard Andre Montemayor converted a pair of turnovers into points to give St. Charles West an 18-16 lead. Warrenton trailed 23-19 at halftime. 

Despite trailing by as many as seven points in the third quarter, Warrenton pulled within three points towards the end of the quarter. St. Charles West guard Barry Thomas Jr. scored on a putback off a missed shot in the closing seconds to put Warrenton down 34-29 at the end of the third quarter. 

With Warrenton trailing early in the fourth quarter quarter, St. Charles West ran 1:44 off the clock. Warrenton switched to a man-to-man defense with just over four minutes remaining to combat St. Charles West’s attempt to run out the block. 

“I knew we had to go man,” Thomas said. “Which I told the guys before the game, if we have to go man, we’re in big trouble. Because they’re a really good attacking team. They’re really comfortable in their man-to-man stuff. That’s what it came down to late is they got comfortable and they got easy ones.”

Thomas said Warrenton’s plan was to stay in their zone defense all game, but the game situation dictated that Warrenton needed to play man-to-man defense. When Warrenton was able to stay in their zone defense, Thomas thought it was effective. 

“I thought the key for us was just trying to stop their penetration out of it,” Thomas said. “We knew who we needed to get out on if they were going to get into a shooting motion. So I thought they did a really good job executing the game plan. We ran out of time late.”

After scoring 10 points in the first quarter, Warrenton scored 22 points combined in the final three quarters. They scored three points in the final quarter. 

“We struggled to shoot the ball all night,” Thomas said. “We did alright when we were inside but anything that was outside the three-point line was just a struggle.”

Oliver led Warrenton with 11 points in the loss. Anderson added eight points for Warrenton. Forrest and Kannon Hibbs each scored six points. 

Warrenton is scheduled to host STEAM Academy at 6:30 p.m. Friday.


X