The West Prairie High School boys basketball team took to the road this past week and picked up a pair of victories to extend their winning streak to 15 games.
Monday night, the Cyclones traveled to Augusta and came away with a convincing 73-42 non-conference win over the Suns.
The following evening, WPHS traveled to Havana where the Cyclones pulled out a 62-59 Prairieland Conference South Division victory over the Ducks to improve to 20-4 overall and 3-1 in the conference.
Against Southeastern, WPHS placed three players in double figures and shot 61 percent (31-of-49) from the floor enroute to the win.
The Cyclones jumped out to a 23-10 first quarter lead and increased it to 39-18 by halftime.
The Suns would never seriously threaten as WPHS outscored Southeastern 34-24 in the second half to take home the victory.
Braden Coplan led the Cyclones with a game-high 26 points, while Holden Coplan and Ryan Clark finished with 17 and 10 points respectively.
Eli DeCounter added eight points for WPHS, followed by Austin Nelson with five, Hunter Jackson with three and Matt Whitman and Ivan Beck with two points apiece.
“Initially we were kind of preaching about fast starts and we didn’t start out fast,” said WPHS head coach Ian Conkling. “But with time, we had the opportunities to kind of get out and run.”
“In the second and third quarter, we were able to get some runouts and kind of run our offense,” he added. “We started playing a whole lot better and more competent.”
In the JV contest, Southeastern came away with a 72-52 victory over West Prairie.
Against Havana, Braden Coplan poured in 30 points to pace the Cyclones to the narrow victory over the Ducks.
WPHS converted on 21-of-26 free throw attempts (81 percent) in the game to secure the victory.
“I like to consider a few games on our schedule and classify it to the team as ‘prove it’ games and Havana was one of them,” said Conkling. “This is where you’ve got to show what your record is up to this point and play up to our standard.”
“We scouted them and knew they were a good team,” he added. “We had some size issues because we knew they were taller and going to be more physical plus they had a week to scout us.”
Matt Whitman also finished in double figures with 11 points while Clark, DeCounter and Holden Coplan had seven points each to round out the WPHS offense.
The Cyclones shot 51 percent (18for-35) from the floor and hit 5-of-11 three-point attempts (45 percent) in the game.
Braden Coplan also hauled down a team-high seven rebounds.
Coming off of a 14-win season last year, Conkling is happy with the current winning streak and reaching the 20-win plateau.
“Yeah, it’s always nice but we just want to keep progressively playing our best basketball,” said Conkling. “We simply want to be playing our best basketball towards the end of the season. We know there are a few challenges coming up on our schedule as the season winds down.”
“We’re ready to embrace those challenges and most good teams want those challenges to see what they’re made of,” he added.
