Worth County hammers 17-win East Atchison squad
JON DYKSTRA/THE FORUM
Worth County senior Brayden Combs handles the ball Monday against East Atchison in Grant City.
GRANT CITY, Mo. — Worth County has played a lot of good basketball this season with its 13-9 record, but they haven’t had a signature win since December when they beat teams like Braymer, King City and Albany. Since then, they haven’t beaten a team with a winning record while dealing with sickness and injury.
With a week left before districts, the Tigers picked up that confidence-building win — beating a 17-7 East Atchison squad 59-36 on Senior Night in Grant City.
“It is fun playing with these guys,” Worth County lone senior Brayden Combs said. “Winning tonight means a lot to me. It is my last home game ever.”
East Atchison has shined all season with their high-scoring backcourt led by Carter Oswald, Brody Wennihan and Parker Livengood. The Tigers’ lone senior Brayden Combs almost always gets the top defensive assignment and embraced guarding Oswald and the Wolves’ guards on Monday.
“Stay on their hip,” Combs said. “You know that they are going to shoot tough shots. You want to make those tough shots even tougher and make sure that they don’t get to the rim as much.”
Offensively, the Tigers got rolling with their bigs each scoring early. Ryder Smyser scored to put the Tigers up 8-3. After a Livengood bucket to draw within two, Tiger junior Ethan Lininger answered with a score off an assist by Dylan Smith.
The Wolves trapped Tiger star guards Caleb New and Brock Healy, and forced others to make plays, and Jordan Dannar and Smith did just that.
“We really worked on rebounding,” Dannar said. “I think that rebounding was a big key in that game. We found our guys who were hot and started putting up points.”
Dannar opened the second quarter with a jumper in the paint to go up by three, but Oswald scored the next eight points for the Wolves and gave East Atchison a 20-18 lead, its only lead of the night.
New and Healy each answered with 3-pointers to flip momentum back in the home team’s favor. New finished in the paint for a 26-20 lead. After Mason Kingery scored, Healy hit his fifth 3-pointer of the first half for a 29-22 lead at the break.
“He is a rhythm shooter,” Worth County coach Les New said of Healy. “And when he gets hot, he is pretty good. He has been battling some sickness and we had to take him in and out, but whenever he caught his breath and got his feet set, he was knocking them in.”
East Atchison opened the third quarter with a 7-3 spurt to cut it to 32-29. New answered with a 4-0 run to stretch it back to seven points and the margin was 38-31 after the sides traded baskets to end the third quarter.
The fourth quarter was all Tigers with a 21-5 quarter. Smith and Dannar kicked it off with back-to-back scores, and Healy found New for a 3-pointer and a 45-31 lead. Kingery scored, but the Tigers put the game on ice with a 12-0 run into seven points from Dannar.
“It feels good when you have the confidence to shoot,” Dannar said.
Dannar nearly had three more as he hit a triple just after Coach New called a timeout.
Caleb New led Worth County with 20 points while Healy added 18 despite battling illness and having to come out of the game several times in the second half. Dannar had 11 points while Smith and Smyser each had four, and Lininger added two.
Carter Oswald led East Atchison with 13 points while Kingery had 10 and Livengood had eight.
Worth County ends its regular season with road games at Platte Valley on Tuesday and at Maysville on Thursday.
“We lost to Platte Valley in the Stanberry Tournament, so that has burnt a hole in all of our hearts,” Combs said. “So we are going to keep that, keep moving forward with that and hopefully beat Platte Valley tomorrow on the road, then practice up and go to Maysville.”
