skip navigation

JV Cats roll to win fourth straight over Tigers after sluggish start

By Ryan Grabowski ‘18, 12/16/17, 7:45AM EST

Share

Cleveland Heights High - After three blowout victories for the JV Wildcats, keeping their mindset in the right place was going to be the key to defeating the Cleveland Heights Tigers on Thursday night.

The Tigers were going to be their toughest competition to date and definitely gave the Cats a tough game. After what seemed to be a sluggish start for the Wildcats, we saw a sight from this basketball team that we have not seen this year. Coach Salata’s Wildcats looked to be in slow motion in the first half, which put them down by 2 to the Tigers at halftime.

The starting lineup did not start the second half as Coach Salata looked to change things up in order to take control of the second half. We have seen most, if not all of the JV bench score in the past two games but in this case, they were playing in a much tighter game. Coach Salata showed a lot of faith in his bench Thursday night.

The Cats pulled away to eight-point lead with three to play in the third quarter and maintained a 10 point lead by end of the quarter. Following a much better looking third quarter McNamara lead scoring for the Wildcats with 10 points. McNamara checked out of the game with five minutes to play with 14 points to a nice ovation from the Wildcat faithful. McNamara put up some very solid minutes in the third and fourth quarter and helped the Wildcats pull away from the Heights Tigers.

In the fourth quarter, Armen showed his ability to make sharp cuts to the basket giving himself a quick 6 points while Jack Whelan showed his power in directing traffic and running the floor for the Wildcats. Whelan would finish the game with eight points.

Cleveland Heights never gave up though. The Tigers knocked down a three with a minute left in the game to cut the Wildcat lead to 13 and continued to play hard defense and foul for the last minute of the game. Jaylin Boyd led the way for the Tigers with 21 points.

Tigers knock down three with a minute left in the game to make it a 54-41 point game in favor of the Wildcats. Tigers continue to battle even with a 13 point deficit.

The Wildcats will be back in action on the east side tomorrow night to take on the Solon Comets. Tip-off at 6:00 pm with varsity following at 7:30 pm.