WACO wins Warrior battle

KEOSAUQUA — The Van Buren County boys held on for as long as they could Tuesday night against current third seed in the Southeast Iowa Super Conference South WACO, but it the Warriors in blue that came out on top.

WACO used a dominant second half to complete the season sweep over Van Buren County and keep within striking distance of the one and two seeds in the conference standings.

“If you asked me that at the beginning of the year, we wanted to get better and get some of these younger guys some playing time,” WACO head coach Paul Kissell said of looking ahead. “Now we’re right in the thick of it. There’s a couple close games there challenging for conference. We’re still trying to get better each game.”

Van Buren County and WACO were neck and neck in the first half, ending the quarter knotted at 12, then WACO found its rhythm.

The score was 15-13 in favor of WACO, until the Warriors in blue erupted from three. WACO sunk three deep balls in under a minute to extend its lead to 21-13, ending the quarter on a 14-4 run to make it 27-17 at the break.

WACO looked as if they were going to pull way early in the third, but Van Buren was able to stay within striking distance.

Following a short 4-0 start for WACO, Van Buren used a 9-3 run to make it an eight point game. It’s the closest Van Buren County would come. WACO ended the third on a 15-7 run, with three falling from deep, making it a 49-33 game heading into the fourth.

“They were playing an extended zone, and we were seeing success inside,” WACO sophomore Hunter Hughes said. “When they started to drop to the middle, it made it easier to hit those outside shots.”

Van Buren never had an answer and any type of momentum was quickly thwarted by WACO. The Warriors in blue outscored the Warriors in white 22-12 in the fourth securing the South division win.

“I’d say they came out and played their game pretty well,” Van Buren head coach Trey Magnani said. “We knew off makes they were going to pressure us. We didn’t do a great job at getting into our offense as soon as I would have liked, but first half defensively we played really well. As the game went on it just got away from us.”

Hughes led WACO on the scoring end with a game-high 20 points. Simeon Reichenbach and Reece Oswald scored 14 a piece. Colton Leichty added seven. Cody Graber finished with six. Vincent Jones chipped in four. Isaac Oswald had three. Chase Waterhouse ended with two and Taylor Sutton one.

For Van Buren, Jackson Manning and Owen Loeffler led the way with 13 each. Izaak Loeffler finished with nine. Lucas Fett ended the game with three. Anthony Duncan and Joseph Debner each had one.

WACO improves to 13-3 overall and 9-3 in the conference. Van Buren falls to 2-12 overall and 2-10 in conference play.