West Plains Wolves use big second half to beat Canyon

The West Plains Wolves seemed as cold as the weather offensively during the first half of their game with Canyon ISD rival Canyon on Saturday afternoon at Joe Lombard Gymnasium.

They must have found some sort of good heat source at halftime, because they sure seemed warmed up for the last two quarters.

After struggling mightily on offense in the first half in a game where points weren’t easy to come by, West Plains found a spark in the second half. The Wolves tied the game and took the lead for good in the final minute of the third quarter en route to beating Canyon 53-42 in a key District 4-4A game.

West Plains (13-10, 4-1 in district) remained tied for second place in the district a game behind Randall. It didn’t come that easy for the Wolves to maintain their position.

“I just told our guys I’m so proud of them for finding a way to win,” West Plains coach Kendall Cogburn said. “We couldn’t have played much worse offensively in the first quarter. We were taking good shots but we weren’t making anything.

“I don’t know if we were out of our routine, but this is always a tough place to play. I’ve got to give a lot of credit to Canyon for how well they defended us. I’m glad that we battled back.”

Nobody was making much of anything, particularly in the first half as West Plains never led. Canyon (11-11, 2-3) led 9-4 at the end of the first quarter, and while the Wolves showed more offensive spark in the second quarter, they still trailed 20-15 at halftime.

West Plains awoke offensively in the third quarter, and twice tied the game. They finally took the lead when Jackson Mast came off the bench and hit a 3-pointer to make it 34-33 at the end of the period. Mast started the fourth quarter with another three, and the Wolves never looked back.

“We started pushing the ball in transition and getting some easy stuff and got the ball inside and settled in,” Cogburn said. “I’m really proud that we found a way to win. It was ugly early but we played a good second half. We just challenged our guys to be resilient, get the ball in the paint and play through some contact.”

Despite the poor offensive start, West Plains had three players in double figures.
Kaden Hooker had a game-high 14 points, including 11 in the second half before fouling out. Ethan Gilliam had 12 points, with nine in the second half, and Reid Macon scored 11, also with nine in the second half.

“It’s a 14-game district and this is just another round,” Cogburn said. “Every game’s going to be tough. We’ve got to finish up that first round of district and keep momentum going. It’s still way too early to tell anything, but it is a good win on the road.”

Brox Hacker led Canyon with 13 points and Jordan Webber had 11.