Wright City was able to trim Van Far’s lead to a single point in the fourth quarter, but the Wildcats ultimately fell 63-57 Monday night.
Wright City (3-18) lost its 12th straight game with the six-point home loss. Jerry Stanford paced the Wildcats’ offensive attack with 12 points. Hayden Waters added 10 points.
“The guys played hard,” Wright City boys basketball coach Ken Brown said. “The effort was there. I think a couple times our defensive breakdowns were mainly because we didn’t get the rebounds I thought we should get. We didn’t rotate as hard as we needed to. They got a lot of second chance points. I think that killed us down the stretch."
With a deficit in the third quarter, the Wildcats turned to its press defense. The defense forced some turnovers early but Van Far got used to it later in the second half, Brown believes.
“The guys kind of got tired and we didn’t kind of sprint back like we needed to once that pressure is broken,” Brown said. “The press is designed to kind of speed them up a little bit. Turn the ball over and that will speed them up. Because we were down so we were just trying to get them to think really quickly and turn the ball over so we did a good job ultimately but just didn’t execute down the stretch. Kind of ran out of gas down at the end.”
Brown credited Trent Bruning with penetrating the Van Far defense and passing the ball to open teammates for shots. Bruning led the Wildcats with four assists. Brown said the Wildcats hit more three point shots in Monday’s game than they have in past games.
The Wildcats had a home game against Silex scheduled for Wednesday. They are slated to host Wellsville today. Brown said the focus down the stretch will be on offensive continuity and doing a better job of playing together.
“Pass to the open man and do a good job of taking care of the ball,” Brown said. “I think sometimes when we don’t get the shot we want we kind of convert to just doing whatever. So we got to get more structure in the next couple games to be more successful.”
The season so far for the Wildcats has been a whirlwind season, Brown said. They started the year with a group of seniors, most of which did not last through the season for various reasons.
“We’ve went from an older team to a young team really quickly with one senior,” Brown said. “So right now what I’m doing is just trying to get continuity between these juniors and the sophomores I have. Just really working on them just playing together. I think the future is bright. I start two sophomores and two juniors and a senior. So I think that getting a lot of those guys back next year is going to be beneficial for us in the future.”
The Wildcats played a road game Friday and lost to Clopton, 65-54. Bruning led the Wright City offensive attack with 29 points. Carleon Jones added 10 points.

The Wildcats lost in double overtime Wednesday against Silex High School. Check next week's Warren County Record for a game recap.