YATES CENTER The Yates Center Wildcats defended their home turf Friday with a 46-43 win over the Sedan Blue Devils in the championship game of the Wildcat Winter Classic. The game came down to the final seconds. The two teams in height, in athleticism, in hustle, in their devotion to the full-court press, in their guard-heavy rosters shared an unusual symmetry. The action was always going to be close.
The two teams traded buckets for the initial eight minutes, and when the first half ended it was Yates Center who entered the locker room up 25-24. Wildcats senior Aaron King was responsible for 16 of those 25 hometown points. Not for the first time nor for the last King was the game’s leading scorer.
The senior had a cooler hand in the second half. Luckily, though, he received substantial help from the firm of Reynolds, Jones, Splechter & Smoot, who divided the scoring among themselves to keep the Blue Devils’ defense guessing.
But with only six minutes left in the ballgame, the air in the gym has changed, fans in both bleachers lean in. Loud cheering commences. A man on the Sedan side whoops (or maybe it was a woman). At this point, Sedan leads Yates Center 36-34. But Yates Center strikes back 10 seconds later: now its 36-36, tie game. 5:00 left: Sedan now, 38-36. At this point, both teams’ shooting enters a brief cryogenic phase, but then the Wildcats finally melt the cold streak with a baseline jumper, which again forces the tie. Next possession: Yates Center gets a defensive stop and orchestrates, on the opposite end, a handsome give and go, giving Easton Reynolds his seventh point of the game, and pushing the Wildcats into the lead, 40-38, with 3:20 remaining. Yates Center shifts into a zone defense. But it’s no bother for the Blue Devils: Sedan’s Tayte Halderman chooses that moment to score his only bucket of the game, a high-arcing three-pointer that drops through the net, giving his team the 41-40 go-ahead lead. The seesaw encounter continues. But its Yates Centers ball now. Less than two minutes left: Reynolds dribbles around a defender but mistimes a pass into the post and sends the rock dribbling out of bounds. Sedan is again on the move. But they can’t capitalize this time. Yates Center takes over. There’s barely more than a minute left. Wildcat Hadley Splechter slips free of his defender and finds a midrange opening on the left side. He nails it, propelling Yates Center back into the lead, 42-41.
From this point, the Wildcats would never again relinquish their lead. Sedan would score again, but so would Yates Center, twice. The 46-43 win gives the Wildcats their second-straight Winter Classic tournament championship win, and the first for Yates Center rookie head coach Jason Graf.
King led all scorers with 22 points. Reynolds added 7; Nolan Jones, 6; Splecter, 5; Tytan Smoot, 4; and Reece Solander scored 2 in the first quarter.
The Wildcats next game is at Southeast Cherokee on Tuesday.
Lady Wildcats
The Yates Center girls finished third overall with a 43-35 win over Sedan.
