Published: February 21, 2009 12:14 am      

HOOPS: Western beats Cass to finish atop MIC

RUSSIAVILLE — Western whipped Lewis Cass 48-24 Friday night at Richard R. Rea Gymnasium to clinch at least a share of the Mid-Indiana Conference boys basketball championship.

The Panthers held a 16-9 advantage following a sluggish first half, then outscored the Kings 17-6 in the third quarter to take the game by the throat. The Panthers led by as many as 29 points in the final quarter.

“The past couple games, we struggled a little bit in the third quarter,” Western senior center Stephen Truesdell said. “We just knew at halftime that we needed to dig in and with the conference on the line, just come out and give everything we had because we play for championships in our program, and this was a chance to win one.

“I’ve been in the program four years,” Truesdell added. “It’s the greatest feeling to get a championship.”

Western (11-7 overall) finished MIC play with a 6-1 record. Hamilton Heights is the only other team in the championship picture. Heights 5-1 in league play with a game remaining against Peru on Feb. 27.

“The conference championship is something that’s very important to us,” said Western coach Andy Weaver, who has led the Panthers to four MIC titles in the last six seasons. “I thought our guys came ready to play and gave great effort. All we can worry about is what we can control and I thought our guys took care of business [Friday] night.”

Following a 5-all tie midway through the opening quarter, the Panthers led the rest of the way. They owned a 9-5 lead after the first quarter and a 16-9 lead at 3:11 of the second quarter. Neither team scored the remainder of the half.

Western finished the opening half just 7 of 24 from the field, but it had the lead because Cass made just 4 of 20 attempts.

“Offensively, we left some [points] out there on the table in the first half — missed some inside shots that we normally finish — but we told our guys to stay the course,” Weaver said. “Offensively, I thought we really came alive in the third quarter.”

Weaver’s squad looked sharp in the third quarter, knocking down 7 of 11 shots from the field to build a commanding 33-15 lead. Truesdell, Matt Reida and Wes White fueled the third-quarter surge. Truesdell knocked down 4 of 4 shots from the field, scored nine points and dished an assist and Reida and White had three assists apiece.

Western maintained a comfortable advantage throughout the final quarter.

Darrian Greene finished with 17 points to lead the Panthers’ balanced attack. Truesdell followed with nine points and six rebounds, White and Reida combined for 10 points, 10 assists and nine rebounds and Jamal Johnson chipped in five points.

“Reida and White did a good job of getting the ball to the open man,” Weaver said, referring to the players who rank No. 1 and No. 3 in the area in assists. “Across the board, I was pretty pleased with the distributing of the basketball and the unselfishness our team showed.”

Western finished 19 of 44 from the field (43 percent) and committed just nine turnovers. Cass finished 9 of 44 from the field (20.5 percent) including 3 of 21 from 3-point range (14 percent) and turned the ball over 18 times.

Evan Depew led the Kings with seven points. Colton Zeck followed with six points — all of which came in the final 78 seconds. Western held Cass’ top two scorers, Damon Foreman and Kitt O’Brien, to a combined four points.

“You have to credit coach Weaver — he did just as good a job as I’ve always seen him do, He had his team ready to play,” Cass coach Matt Carver said.

“We couldn’t throw the ball in any ocean on the planet and they did a good job of being resilient [and] attacking our zone,” he added. “We didn’t do a good job against their zone, trying to attack. We became flat-footed and passed the ball around on the perimeter and didn’t look to attack and didn’t look to get the ball inside. I looked at the shot chart after the game and we took 10 shots in the paint [out of 44] — that’s just not going to work.”