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Pesky West wears down Thunderhawks

Fourth-quarter scoring run keeps Firebirds in the GMC title chase

Lakota West's Kayaune Ross takes a shot over Lakota East's Mark Minch Tuesday night at West. See more photos on our website at Journal-News.com. Contributed photo by Martin Wheeler

wheeler Lakota West's Kayaune Ross takes a shot over Lakota East's Mark Minch Tuesday night at West. See more photos on our website at Journal-News.com. Contributed photo by Martin Wheeler

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12:38 AM Wednesday, February 8, 2012

By John Bombatch

Staff Writer

WEST CHESTER TWP. — Pesky defensive play and persistent rebounding enabled the host Lakota West High School boys basketball team to pull away from rival Lakota East for a 57-46 win Tuesday night.

West coach Sean Van Winkle left immediately after the game to be home with his daughter, who was feeling ill, but deferred comment to his two scoring stars of the night — Ali Barnes (14 points) and Tyler Williams (11).

“It’s not how we wanted to win, but a win is a win,” Barnes said.

“We weren’t really focused early on, and the result was that we had a tough game.

“We really focused on the defensive pressure all week in practice. We knew their guards were real young and felt that we could force difficult passes. We really worked hard on that all week.”

East committed 15 turnovers, while West had just six.

The Thunderhawks never seemed to get a clean drive to the basket. There was almost always a Firebird defender mucking things up somehow, but East kept things close.

The Thunderhawks got a 3-point score from Robbie Harpring and a Dylan Lowry-to-Myo Baxter buzzer-beating score to lead 29-27 at halftime.

A Lowry jump shot pulled the Thunderhawks to within two points at 43-41 with six minutes left to play, but West’s Barnes, Williams, Kayaune Ross and Monty Boykins combined for a 15-4 run to close out the game.

“The coaches gave us a great scouting report. We followed that and it really seemed to help us on defense today,” Williams said.

Harpring led all scorers with 15 points, and Baxter added 14.

The Firebirds won the rebounding battle 28-24, including 14-8 on the offensive glass. The Firebirds had 19 second-chance points to four for East. West hit 22 of 52 shots (42.3 percent), while East shot 45.2 percent (19-of-42)

Thunderhawks coach Wally Vickers was very complimentary of the Firebirds’ team effort.

“They have the best 6-7 players of anybody in southwest Ohio,” Vickers said. “They are a deep and talented team, so they can create some challenges. ... I think they’re the most talented team in southwest Ohio.”

West’s win, combined with Middletown’s win over Princeton and Mason’s win over Fairfield, leaves the Firebirds tied with Mason for second place in the GMC, two games behind Middletown with two games left.

West travels to Sycamore on Friday night. East will host Oak Hills on Friday.

“It was a good win. We worked hard to get this, but we’ve got to continue to work hard these next two games,” Williams said.

Focus on boys basketball Lakota East vs. Lakota West

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