Mustangs nipped on the road by Shelbyville

Published 11:01 am Saturday, December 12, 2020

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SHELBYVILLE – The Running West Orange Stark Mustangs traveled to Shelbyville, Texas to play the Shelbyville Dragons Friday evening and dropped a tight 57-53 decision.

The Dragons have not lost on their home court in over 4 years and the Mustangs came close to ending that streak but could not close it out in the 4th quarter.  The Mustangs would race out to a 13-4 lead in the first 5 minutes but would give it all away due to carelessness with the ball ending the quarter with 7 unforced turnovers.

From then on it would be a back and forth affair going down to the last few seconds where the Dragons would hit their free-throws and the Mustangs (3-5) did not.  Both teams full court pressure forced each other into 26 turnovers a piece but the Dragons would go 15/19 (79%) from the line and the Mustangs a dismal 6/16 (38%).  Besides these numbers WOS would have some bright spots with Quintin Proctor finishing with another double/double 10 pts and 11 rebounds while Michael Wardlow would also pitch in 10 points and was hampered with foul trouble all night.  Sophomore Darren Anderson would add 9 points, 4 assist, 5 rebounds and 4 steals.

Rocedric Pappillion would come in and add 6 points/7 rebounds and Brenden Gant would pitch in 8 points and 7 rebounds.  Aiden Hernandez-Crochett would hit 2 big 3’s in the fourth to cut it to 1 pt with 58 seconds left to finish the night with 6 points.  Brother Adrian Hernandez-Crochett would finish with only 1 pt. but would have a season high 7 assist and only 1 turnover.

Coach Wilson said “the Hernandez-Crochett brothers really played well tonight and handled the pressure, unfortunately our bigs wanted to be guards all of a sudden causing most of the turnovers.  Tonight was actually a good night for us because we finally saw my best rotations.  We will stop playing 12 in the rotation and play about 9 as we head into district.  This will help our court chemistry which I believe I found tonight”.