Outside The County-North Miami
Results from North Miami for Thursday, February 1st
In the second-to-last conference game of the year, the North Miami Warriors were headed to Whitko High School to take on the impressive Wildcats. Whitko is currently 4-2 in the TRC and 11-3 overall. The Wildcats will use their height and size to their advantage against the Warriors. Meanwhile, NM is 2-13 and still at one win in conference play. They will look to use their speed to their advantage to try and wear down the bigger Whitko team.
NM got off to a good start in the game, getting a stop on defense and then hitting a 3 on their first possession. Whitko came down and scored a 3 of their own and went into takeover mode for a good stretch. The Warriors couldn’t catch a break, Whitko shot perfect in the paint and hit a few three pointers to lead 20-3 after the first. The Wildcats didn’t cool off after that, going perfect from deep and adding more off of jump shots inside. NM got a few more buckets to fall, but it was hard to beat a team shooting 70%. Whitko went into the half with a 26 point lead.
Coming out of the half, both teams were a little bit slow to get something started for them. They were each hitting shots but not in consecutive possessions and the defense had picked up the intensity. The Warriors hung with their opponent on the scoring end for the most part, but Whitko got a few extra to stretch their lead to 32. The Wildcats really cooled down in the fourth quarter, scoring just 8 points, and the Warriors put up 10 of their own. The second half was a much closer game, but the hot first half put Whitko up big and helped secure a 67-37 victory over the Warriors.
With just one more TRC game left in the season before they leave the conference next year, the Warriors are looking to go out with a bang. They will have to wait a little bit for that game though, since they have a familiar opponent next Tuesday. They will take on former TRC member Tippecanoe Valley on the road before they play Lewis Cass next Friday. The Warriors are still stuck on 2 wins this year and have a big task in front of them for the next week. Both opponents will be similar to Whitko, so the Warriors should know how to execute against size. Their next two games next week will both be road games, making it harder for the team to get the energy they need.
