Touchet takes win from Tigercats

After having the St. John-Endicott game cancelled on Friday due to weather conditions, the LWK Tigercats went on the road Saturday, Dec. 21, to face the Touchet Indians. After a close, competitive first half, Touchet ran away with a 54-40 win over the Tigercats in the league match up.

The Tigercats went out to an early lead over Touchet when the team ended the first quarter 15-8. Touchet reversed the roles in the second quarter and the two teams went into halftime tied at 27 points.

The second half went heavily in favor of Touchet as they outscored the Tigercats 14-7 in the third quarter and 13-6 in the fourth quarter.

“In the second half, we kind of did ourselves in with too many turnovers, the shots didn’t fall, and we were a little impatient offensively,” head coach Mike Stubbs said.

“Credit to them, they played good and are very athletic,” Stubbs added. “They’re going to give teams a lot of trouble.”

Stubbs said the impatience on offense from the Tigercat athletes resulted in unnecessary and unforced turnovers in the second half. It had a snowball effect on the team and Stubbs said things slowly unraveled, but the final score did not reflect the actual effort put forth by the team.

For the majority of the game, Stubbs said the largest point spread was about eight points, and it wasn’t until later in the fourth quarter when Touchet went up by a substantial amount.

“It’s not to lack of effort,” Stubbs said about the Tigercat loss. “We just needed to rebound a little better in the second half and need to be more patient. But then again, it’s a hard lesson these kids have to learn that don’t have a lot of varsity experience.”

Stubbs said the team remained competitive during the game and made the appropriate adjustments throughout the match, especially defensively. Stubbs said the Tigercats found success early in the game against Touchet’s man defense, but when they switched to a zone defense, the Tigercats struggled to convert the points.

Darcy Stamper led the team with 19 points and Joey Guske contributed eight points to the final score. Riley Roberts had seven points, and Graham BeDell, Chance Rice and Stephen Erickson each had two points.

The Tigercats are now preparing to compete at the Dayton Tournament on Friday and Saturday of this week. The team returns to league play on Jan. 3 when they face Rosalia.