Back on Jan. 26, the West Prairie boys basketball team handed Augusta Southeastern a 73-42 defeat enroute to a school-record setting 24-win regular season.
Monday night in the quarterfinal round of the IHSA Class 1A Tremont Regional, the third-seeded Cyclones needed a late fourth quarter rally to finally subdue the 14th-seeded Suns 57-49 in Colchester.
With the higher-seeds hosting opening round games of regionals across the state, WPHS was expected to have little trouble in advancing to the semifinal round. But Southeastern sent a message from the opening tipoff that this game was going to be much closer than the previous meeting.
Sophomore Brady McClintock got the Suns rolling with a three-pointer to give SEHS a 3-0 lead to start.
The Cyclones would answer with a 9-0 run over the next couple of minutes to take their largest lead of the first half at 9-3.
Freshman Kash Lantz stopped the run with a jumper before senior Gunner Walker drilled a trey to bring SEHS within 9-8 with 3:56 left in the opening quarter.
WPHS extended its lead out to 13-8, but the Suns responded with a 7-0 spurt capped by a buzzer-beating three-pointer from Walker to give Southeastern a 15-13 advantage after one quarter.
The second quarter saw the game tied four times with three lead changes as both teams continued their offensive counterpunching.
The Cyclones started the period on a 6-2 run to grab a 21-17 lead before the Suns came back with a basket by freshman Hayden Wilcox and a three-pointer from sophomore Chase Northern. That gave the Suns a 22-21 lead with just under four minutes left in the first half.
With the score tied at 24-all, West Prairie scored its next five points from the free throw line, including one due to a technical foul called on the Suns’ bench.
The Cyclones held that advantage until a four-point play by McClintock with 27 seconds remaining in the half closed the gap to 29-28.
West Prairie answered as senior Ryan Clark nailed a three-pointer at the buzzer to give the Cyclones a 32-28 halftime lead.
The third quarter belonged to the visitors as the Suns’ defense held WPHS to just one field goal in the period. The Suns outscored the Cyclones 12-7 to take a slim 40-39 lead into the fourth quarter.
McClintock led the comeback by scoring eight of his team-high 19 points in the period.
West Prairie turned up the intensity in the final eight minutes after baskets by freshman Gannon Shipman, junior Matt Whitman and junior Eli DeCounter got the Cyclones rolling to a 45-40 lead with 4:17 to go.
A trey by Lantz stopped the run to make it 45-43, but WPHS responded with two consecutive baskets by Clark and a jumper from Whitman to go up 51-43 and forcing a SEHS timeout with only 2:34 remaining.
Coming out of the timeout, Lantz hit another three-pointer to bring the Suns to within 51-46, but the Cyclones outscored the Suns 6-3 down the stretch to secure the hard-earned victory.
“With us, it’s just all about the moment,” said West Prairie head coach Ian Conkling referring to his team’s performance. “At times, I felt the moment was pretty big for us. I told them at halftime that we just need to be able to breathe and relax and play our game. But, no matter how it looks, it’s all about finding a way to continue to play and move on.”
Braden Coplan led West Prairie with 19 points and Clark finished with 11 points.
Whitman and freshman Holden Coplan each had eight points while DeCounter and Shipman finished with six and five points respectively to round the WPHS scoring.
Along with McClintock’s 19 points, Lantz finished with 13 for the Suns who saw their season come to an end with a 2-16 record.
West Prairie (25-6) faced 11th-seeded Camp Point Central (6-19) in a semifinal matchup in Tremont on Wednesday.
Central defeated the Cyclones 87-86 in triple overtime on Feb. 19 in the only other matchup between the two teams this season.
