WACO sprints through Van Buren County

WAYLAND — For the WACO boys basketball team, the Tuesday win over Van Buren County was a dominating one.

WACO picked up their fifth win of the season with a 64-28 victory over Van Buren County.

The Warriors in blue applied unrelenting pressure straight out of the gates, hitting the Warriors in orange with a full-court press, which they could never solve.

“One of the things we really focus on is intensity,” WACO head coach Paul Kissell said. “We’re playing you the full-length of the floor, every minute of the game. We really work on that, and you could see that we were able to get turnovers and that leads to easy baskets for us.”

WACO coupled the press with great defense and a hard nosed paint mentality.

Van Buren County was outscore in each of the four quarters, and held to single digits in three out of the four.

To begin the game, Van Buren grabbed a quick 3-0 lead, but WACO would go on to score 18 unanswered, ending the quarter leading 19-4.

WACO didn’t let up in the second. With a 8-0 run to start the second and another late in the quarter the Warriors in blue never looked back, leading 41-9 at the half.

Van Buren was held to just five points in the second quarter.

“It all starts with the defensive end,” Kissell said. “We really just focus on stopping the other team and taking that energy to the offensive end. Just having that attacking mentality throughout the entire roster. You could see that in the second half, when guys came in. There’s no let up.”

The Warriors in blue picked up another eight unanswered to begin the third as they would go on to win the quarter 10-7, giving them a 51-16 lead.

In the fourth, the damage was too great and WACO piled on another 13 points to Van Buren’s 12.

WACO had 11 different scorers in the contest. Mason Miller lead all scores with 15. Hunter Hughes added 10. Zach Schmitz finished with eight. Colton Leichty had seven. Simeon Reichenbach chipped in six. Reece Oswald and Vincent Jones ended with five. Tyson Sutton ended with three. Kohl Hildebrand and Roman Roth had two. Cody Graber finished with one.

For Van Buren, Jackson Manning led the way with 13 points. Izaak Loeffler, Lucas Fett and Owen Loeffler all scored four. Anthony Duncan and Wyatt Mertens each added two.

WACO moves to 5-1 (3-1) on the season. Van Buren County drops to 1-5 (1-4).

Comments: hunter.moeller@southeastiowaunion.com