Hull, Iowa — The Western Christian Wolfpack and Le Mars Bulldogs split a Lakes Conference varsity girl/boy basketball double-header Tuesday night at the Western Christian gym.
It was Senior Parent’s Night at Western, with both girls and boys team seniors and their parents introduced before each contest, in what is the Wolfpack final home game of the regular season.
In the girls contest Western dominated the first half, shutting out one of Le Mars’ big offensive threats, Madison Dreckman, who was held scoreless in the first half. The Wolfpack led at the end of one 11-7, and extended their lead to 24-16 at the intermission. Le Mars apparently came up with a new game plan in the halftime locker room, outscoring Western 19-9 in the third, ending the quarter with a 35-33 lead en route to the 50-40 win over the Wolfpack.
Le Mars had just two girls in double figures, with Annie Ellis and Jaelynn Dreckman each contributing 19 points for the Bulldogs. Western had three players in double figures on the night, Olivia Granstra led the way with 12 points, while Emma Bousema and Abby Postma each contributed 11.
Tuesday’s girls contest was the final of the season for Western, as they enter tournament play this weekend.
In the boys contest, the Wolfpack avenged a loss earlier this season at Le Mars by beating the Bulldogs 59-47. Western led at all the breaks, 14-13 at the end of 1, 30-29 at halftime, and 42-36 after three quarters, on the way to the 59-47 victory.
The Bulldogs’ Alex Irwin led all scorers with 21 points on the night, while Spencer Mackey added 10 to Le Mars total. For Western Christian, leading scorer was Carter Broek with 18 points, while Ty Van Essen and Clay Van Tol were the other Western players in double figures with 10 points each.
Jake Vis made his return to the Wolfpack lineup Tuesday night since going out with a dislocated kneecap some two months ago. He played some minutes for Western, and picked up 5 points on the night.
Coach Keizer had this to say about the boys game, “We were pretty stagnant to start the game, our offense wasn’t doing much and we let Irwin get going with 11 points rather quickly. In the second quarter, I thought we were locked in and we were able to force some stops which generated our offense.
Ty Van Essen had a big tip in before the buzzer which gave us some good momentum going into the half.
We did a nice job in the paint area all night. Winning the rebounding advantage by double digits was a big deal to us.”
The Wolfpack boys still have two regular season games to play this week, both non-conference and both on the road. Western will ride the bus to Sioux Falls Christian Thursday night in a game that’s always a big rivalry, then Friday night they’ll be back up in South Dakota to take on Tea Area High School at Tea, South Dakota. We’ll have both of those games for you on KIWA-FM 105.3.
