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Wildcats Use Strong 4th Quarter to Secure Win

O’fallon, MO: The Westminster Wildcats secured a big win against a talented Living Word (O’fallon Christian) team by a score of 53-44. The Wildcats improve to 5-3 while the Eagles fall to 5-5. Coming off of a great performance against Burroughs, it was crucial that Westminster kept the momentum going heading into their off weeks.

The game started off as a back and forth battle, with neither team getting an edge of the other. The Wildcats and Eagles traded buckets in a very quick and fast break heavy first quarter, ending 17-17.

In the second quarter, things slowed down, in scoring and in pace. Westminster found success feeding the ball inside to Brennan Orf who finished with a game high 21 points. Apart from Orf, however, the Cats struggled shooting the ball, especially from 3, going 5/17 (29%) on the night.

“We’ve got really good shooters,” said Coach Ribble, “but for whatever reason we didn’t make a whole lot of threes tonight.”

The game entered halftime with Christian High leading 38-37.

The third quarter was another close battle between the two teams. When the Eagles would go on a run, the Wildcats would respond. In the final stretch of the quarter Matthew George, junior, and Jerram Adams, senior, hit two huge threes to leave the game tied at 41 entering the fourth.

The Wildcat defense completely dominated the final 8 minutes of the game. They forced 5 turnovers, and recorded an impressive 6 steals, holding O’fallon Christian to only 3 points  in the fourth quarter. Westminster did what they had to on the offensive side, putting up a 12 spot to take the 53-44 win.

“The second half I thought we played much better defensively, and offensively we did some really good things,” commented Coach Ribble on the win.

Westminster has a little Christmas break before they take on Hazelwood West in the Chaminade Christmas Tournament December 27 at 4:00 pm.