By Sammy Nance-Murphy

On Friday, December 6 the West Washington (WW) Senators beat Pekin. The final score of the Varsity game was 57-55 and the J.V. score was 51-24.

The entire team played together to achieve the win. “Overall, everyone who played gave very solid minutes. Silas Batt led us with 15 points and had a big first half for us to get us going. Holden Russell had a great floor game scoring 13 points and dished 11 assists with 0 turnovers. Hayden Morrow and Colton Brown did all the little things and both had several rebounds and steals. Hayden had the biggest rebound of the night, hitting the game-winner off an offensive rebound,” head coach Ashton Minton said.

During halftime, the team talked about what changes needed to be made so they could pull through with a win. “We did a great job of adjusting in the second half and making it difficult for Banet. Credit to him, he had an unbelievable first half so we knew we had to come out and give him a different look. The boys did a great job of adjusting defensively. Two games in a row they have done a great job of executing the adjustments we made during halftime. Hopefully, we can keep that up moving forward,” Minton said.

The Senators will continue to work and improve their gameplay. “We need to continue to get better rebounding and making the right decisions when we have a good lead. Both games we have had a decent lead and haven’t seemed to extend it. Moving forward, we hope to make the right decision every possession and finish off the game and extend the lead instead of letting the other team hang around and keep it close,” Minton said.

The game was tied up 55 to 55, but Hayden Morrow made the game-winning shot at the last second. “I think emotions are different for every person on the bench and on the court during a close game. The more calm and collective a player is, usually the more comfortable they are in those moments. In close games, you want the ball in the hands of a player who keeps their composure no matter the time and score of the game,” said Minton.

On December 13, WW will play Paoli at home, and on December 14 they will play Trinity Lutheran away. The J.V. will start at 6 p.m. for both games.

“This weekend will be our first back-to-back weekend of the season. We have to focus on one opponent at a time and execute from night to night. Paoli will be one of the best and most physical teams we play on our schedule so it will be a good challenge for us early in the season to see where we are. Trinity is another good opponent on back-to-back nights. They will play a different style than Paoli so we will have to play multiple styles and speeds in both games,” Minton said.