Wolverines sweep rival Eagles on road
EUPORA – Drew Gray has been willing to be a swiss army knife for the Eupora Eagles as he’s helping coach several different sports as an assistant, but he wasn’t expecting what would happen to him this week.
The Eagles started the season with second-year head man Ross Robinson, but he is no longer leading the program. Gray was selected as the interim coach for the Eagles this week and Friday night was his debut on the sidelines. It just so happened to be against the rivals from across the county in East Webster.
While it ended in a 5234 defeat for Gray and his team, he took much away from the first game with his players.
“It’s just a blessing,” Gray said. “I told the guys that’s how we have to look at it every day. I was blessed to play four sports here and don’t claim to have been good at any of them, but we’re trying to change the culture for whoever comes in next and lay the foundation for that next coach. I think it’s all about realizing that it’s not about me. It’s that word flexibility and being used however you can. I’m just glad we can keep the season going.”
The Wolverines (8-3, 2-0 Class 2A, Region 2) held a slim 13-8 lead in the first quarter before clamping down. Over the next two quarters, East Webster outscored Eupora 34-7 to pull away. The fourth quarter was spent emptying the bench and allowing younger players plenty of opportunity to get experience.
Wolverines head coach Jon Ginn thought his team attacked the game well after the first quarter. East Webster had a sluggish start but took control of the game to get a good head start in district play with a key game against Calhoun City coming up on Tuesday.
“The first four or five minutes we didn’t look so great, but we really started to get in the groove,” Ginn said. “Right now we’re not shooting very well, but when our shots start falling, it’s going to get a lot better. Blake Slay was all over the place and brought a lot of energy.”
Slay finished the game with 15 points. Chandler Hodges led all scorers with 16 after missing the first game of the week against Bruce.
For the Eagles (0-4), they had 11 points each for Joshua Stevenson and Parish Daniels. It was a tough night offensively for Eupora after that solid start in the first quarter. It remains a work in progress for Gray and his team, but he liked how it finished the game.
“I thought we continued to compete,” Gray said. “East Webster always comes to compete no matter who they’re playing and that’s really what I wanted our guys to do (Friday). Our offense is going to be a work in progress the rest of the year so it’s about simplifying it for our guys so they can play faster.”
The two teams will meet again tonight as it plays games that will be considered a non-conference affair. The girls game starts at 6 with the boys to follow in Cumberland.
Girls Game
East Webster 53, Eupora 39
The first three quarters of the girls game was much more competitive and it’s been the trend up for the Lady Eagles.
Despite the loss, Eupora was within striking distance through three frames trailing 40-33. Down the stretch, the Lady Eagles just couldn’t hit the shots that came and ran out of gas as East Webster turned it on in the fourth outscoring the home team 13-6 to get the win.
Whitney Winter had 19 points for the Lady Wolverines as did Shan Culpepper.
“They’re a much improved ball club from last year,” Ginn said of Eupora. “Coach (Cody) Ramer has done a really good job with them and I felt like they had a shot at getting us. I thought we responded. I thought Whitney Winter played one of her best ball games of the year.”
The Lady Eagles were down just 12-10 at the end of the first and 24-20 at the break as they had their second-straight standoff with a district team following a 72-58 loss to Calhoun City in which Eupora was down by just seven points at the half. The 3-point shot wasn’t falling in the second half and the rebounds were going to East Webster, which allowed the game to slip away.
The home team finished just 2-for-24 from 3-point range and Nadia Coffey hit 2-of-12.
Ramer felt like his Lady Eagles needed to hit from outside due to the defense that the Lady Wolverines were giving them.
“We didn’t rebound and we missed a lot of threes,” Ramer said. “We normally don’t shoot that many, but we knew that they were going to pack the paint and we needed to trust the girls to shoot 3s. I was confident in Nadia and she made a couple. The score didn’t show how hard we played.
I definitely think we took a step forward. We played great against Calhoun City. I think, in the district tournament, we’re going to be even better and we’ve been getting better all season.”
East Webster moved to 8-4 with the win and 2-0 in district play while Eupora is now 6-4 and 0-2.