Behind a dominating second half, the Warren Central boys’ basketball team cruised to a 71-39 win over Warren East on Wednesday night in the District 14 Tournament semifinals at Greenwood High School.
With their victory, the second-seeded Dragons (26-4 overall) booked their trip to Friday’s championship game against top-seeded Bowling Green and next week’s Region 4 Tournament at Western Kentucky University’s E.A. Diddle Arena.
“The last three weeks, we’ve been playing our best basketball,” Warren Central coach William Unseld said. “These kids are fighting, man – they’re playing hard. They’re practicing hard and they’re focused. Give Warren East credit – they tried to fight us in the first half and slow it down.”
Warren Central only led 9-5 after the first quarter and 22-12 at halftime but completely took control in the third quarter and rolled from that point on. Region 4 Player of the Year Skyelar Potter led the Dragons with 14 points, while Jamale Barber and Tre Pillow each scored 11.
Tashawn Neal carried the Raiders (16-13) with 14 points in their season-ending loss.
“We’re always glad to take the win,” Potter said. “We came prepared for this game. We knew that they were going to try something special to try to beat us. We came out and just executed. We shared the ball today and just played inside-out.”
Neither team could really find its offense in the opening half, as there had only been nine total points scored at the 2:15 mark of the first quarter with Warren Central leading 6-3. The Dragons went on to hold a slim 9-5 advantage at the end of one.
There was a bit more scoring in the second quarter – mostly for the Dragons.
They led 17-11 with 2:44 remaining in the period after Barber stole a Warren East pass and scored in transition, and later took a 22-12 lead into the locker room at halftime.
“This is the hardest game of the postseason – the first district game,” Unseld said. “Now the pressure’s off of you a little bit, and Friday night you can enjoy it and play basketball and not have to do anything special for it. I like where we are, though.”
Potter was leading Warren Central with nine points at the break, while Neal had scored seven for the Raiders.
It was all Warren Central in the ensuing half.
“The biggest thing is that we had to score,” Unseld said. “(Coach Brandon Combs) had a good game plan starting out, but we’re playing really well and in the second half we kind of took ove the basketball game.”
Leading by 10 at the start of the third quarter, the Dragons built a 37-18 lead at the 3:23 mark of the period before taking a commanding 54-25 advantage into the fourth.
Thanks to its comfortable lead, Warren Central was able to cruise through the final eight minutes of the contest and record a dominating victory.
Friday’s district championship contest between the Dragons and Bowling Green is set to tipoff at 6:30 p.m.
“A well, hard-fought game,” said Potter of what he expects Friday night. “Our ultimate goal is to win, and either way I want my guys to fight. We fell off last year losing in the first round of district – and it’s good to get that reputation going at Central again.”
–Senior writer Tyler Mansfield can be reached at mansfield.sportingtimes@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter at @TMansfieldST.–
