By Bud Milroy
Sports correspondent
An early deficit proved to be too much for the Catholic Central High School boys basketball team to overcome Saturday night, as the Hilltoppers dropped a 64-52 contest at Kenosha St. Joseph.
“The very competitive nature of our kids will keep us battling to the end,” said CCHS coach Eric Henderson. “They won’t quit. We need to take care of the little thing in basketball that will get us over the hump.”
Trailing by eight after the first quarter, the Hilltoppers shaved a bucket off the deficit in the second period behind 3-pointers from Abel Wagner and Spencer Wilker and four points from Rayce Wadsworth.
The Hilltoppers struggled again in the third quarter, managing just two baskets as St. Joe’s pushed the lead to 11.
Both teams picked up the scoring in the final quarter. CCHS nearly matched its entire three previous quarters with 24 points, with Wilker scoring eight points and Wagner six. Colin Foote added a pair of baskets, but the Lancers managed to exceed the Hilltoppers by a point in the quarter.
Wilker led the Hilltoppers in scoring with 14. Wagner followed with 12 points and Foote added nine. Chris Madden and Alex Foster added 15 points each for St. Joseph.
“We are concentrating in practice to get our focus where it needs to be,” Henderson said. “We’re playing real hard but we tend to lose our focus. We need to take our game plan, our concepts, from the practice to the game.”
CCHS will host Racine Lutheran – currently the top-ranked WIAA Division 5 team in the wissports.net polls – Friday at 7:30 p.m.
Girls
The Catholic Central High School girls basketball team opened 2012 with a pair of road losses this past week – 49-43 at Kenosha St. Joseph Friday and 47-34 at Wilmot in a non-conference game Tuesday.
Poor shooting seemed to be the culprit in both games, according to CCHS head coach Jeff Behrens.
“We couldn’t get anything to fall for us at St. Joe’s,” Behrens said.
The Lady ’Toppers shot just 27 percent from the field and had just one 3-pointer. Additionally, the Lancers drained seven 3-pointer and hit two more free throws in the contest.
Allie Hocking led the Lady ’Toppers with 15 points and seven rebounds, while Megan Wadsworth added 10 points.
Against Wilmot, Behrens thought Catholic Central had its best defensive effort of the year.
“We played very good defense throughout the game, probably the best whole-game effort of the year,” said Behrens. Unfortunately, the offense again suffered.
“We missed some very easy shots, layups and bunnies,” Behrens said. “The girls gave it a great effort and played very hard, but the shots again just wouldn’t go down.”
CCHS started off strong and led 12-9 after one quarter, but Wilmot pulled away over the next three quarters.
Hocking was the lone Catholic Central player in double figures with 13 points.
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