For nearly five calendar years the Mount Pleasant boys’ basketball team has been Washington’s kryptonite winning the last nine battles dating back to January 9th, 2015. Last night the Demons exorcised the demon that is the Panthers and got over the hump with a 62-50 victory to close the first half of the season.
As heard on KCII, Washington was slowed down early in part by foul trouble with the Panthers reaching the bonus in the first quarter. Mount Pleasant couldn’t take advantage at the line and a Demon surge late in the second allowed them to turn a deficit into a 25-21 halftime lead. The grind continued for much of the second half until early in the fourth when the Demons stretched the lead to double-digits and never looked back from there. Luke Turner was aggressive early and tied for a team-high 15 points along with Kasen Bailey. Ethan Patterson also was in double figures with 10. Head Coach Collin Stark tells KCII Sports his team did a good job of adjusting to the officials. “The story of the first 16 minutes was us getting used to how they were calling the game. It’s good for us to have to adjust and it took us about a quarter to realize we had to play defense without hands. Near the end of the first quarter we regrouped to figure out how we wanted to start attacking and from there on out we controlled the game.” Washington improves to 4-2 and stands atop of the Southeast Conference with a 3-0 mark.
The Demon girls went on the road to Mount Pleasant and fell 36-32. They trailed 19-11 at half and stormed back in the third to tie it at 21-21 heading into the fourth, but came up short in the end. Anna Nacos led the way with eight points and Halle Leyden had seven for the now 4-3 Demons.
Both teams will resume play January 3rd against Fort Madison.