The West Prairie High School boys basketball team had two special reasons to celebrate their 84-60 victory over Knoxville Thursday night.
It was Senior Night in Colchester as the five seniors on the roster got the chance to start in front of a large and noisy home crowd.
The second reason to celebrate was the victory marked the 22nd win of the season for the Cyclones’ program. That matched the school record win total by the 2003-04 team.
A victory over Rushville-Industry Tuesday night in the home finale will give WPHS a school record 23rd victory with two games remaining before regional action gets underway in two weeks.
West Prairie head coach Ian Conkling started his five seniors - Ryan Clark, Brody Cordell, Jason Foust, Hunter Jackson, and Austin Nelson, to honor their contributions to the program.
It was a special night for each of them especially in front of a large contingent of family and friends. For Clark, who is a regular starter, and Foust, it was a memorable evening.
“It was great,” said Clark. “Every time we made a shot, the crowd went crazy. We usually have that for every game but this game was louder. It just felt good every time we made a shot. I had goosebumps everywhere.”
“The energy was the highest I’ve ever seen in this building,” said Foust. “It was a great experience to see everybody cheering. And to get the win especially with that amount of points, I think that’s the highest amount of points I’ve seen scored while I’ve been here. So, it was just a fun time.”
For Cordell, Jackson, and Nelson, it was their second Senior Night of the school year as all three were members of the WP/SE football team.
All three agreed that it was still a fun evening to experience.
“It was great. I love this team,” said Cordell. “It’s amazing to see how we’ve grown from our freshman year. We couldn’t have done it without our coaches. They really turned around this program. Our fans were great. I made sure to have fun tonight. That was one of my top priorities.”
“(Coach) told us he was going to start us,” said Jackson. “We’ve all played for multiple years together, so we’ve had that chemistry. It was just like any other practice for us.”
Nelson also enjoyed the night, but kept everything in perspective with the season not yet over.
“Tonight was just a fun night for us,” said Nelson. “Now we have to focus and start playing a lot more serious basketball for the end of the season and make sure we can keep it going.”
