Western Boone Jr. - Sr. High School

WEST LAFAYETTE - Heading into Saturday night's match-up with West Lafayette, the Western Boone boys basketball team knew that they had to limit the Red Devils three-point attack if they were going to give themselves a chance at a win. But when it came to game time, the Red Devil's shooting proved to be too much for the Stars. West Lafayette made 12 of 24 3-pointers, and topped Western Boone 61-45 on Saturday night. "We are playing hard and playing pretty well for the most part, but we are getting dominated from the outside," Western Boone head coach Dustin Oakley said. "As a staff, we have to figure out what we are going to give up. It's weird right now, no matter who we play teams are shooting lights out right now. We just need to make some adjustments and go from there." The Stars trailed 18-17 at the quarter and 29-24 at the half. Two free throws from Kaden Bennington and a basket from Levi LaGrange cut the deficit to 31-28 with 5:36 to go in the third quarter. Western Boone had three possessions to tie or cut into the lead, but couldn't convert on the offensive end. Then the Red Devils pulled away quickly. Red Devil junior Donovan Loudermill hit three 3-pointers and had a three-point play in a span of 1:26 sparking what was ultimately a 14-2 run. Loudermill hit six 3-pointers and had 25 points in the game. "It jumped up really quick," Oakley said. "We are struggling right now, on JV and Varsity, of identifying who is hurting us. (Loudermill) was one of the main guys on our scouting report and we put in a lot of work and watched a lot of film on him. We had our best defender on him, and we just don't recognize - whether it's switching off screens or miscommunication - but we let him get hot in the third quarter." The Stars got as close as nine early in the fourth quarter, but a 10-0 run put the game out of reach for good. Over a stretch of nine minutes after the Stars had gotten within three, Western Boone was out-scored 25-9. Oakley said they shot themselves in the foot too many times during that stretch. "Even with the experience we have had throughout the season, I think at times we look up at the scoreboard and panic a little bit," Oakley said. "We didn't need to have one guy get it back by himself. We aren't going to erase that lead in one or two possessions. We still had time to be patient and run our offense and get it inside a little bit. But in both halves there was a 3-4 minute stretch where we just didn't execute offensively." Bennington and LaGrange led the Stars with 15 points each. Luke Barta added nine. Oakley was also pleased with the work of Josiah Smith and the other post players for limiting the Red Devils 6-6 center Divine Adeyanju. Western Boone is back in action Friday on the road at Cascade. "It's going to be a dogfight," Oakley said. "They are a really good defensive teammate. We came out tonight and played hard, and I can live with a result like this. We just have to get back to practice and get better. We good production overall tonight, we just had some missed opportunities and a couple of lapses against a good team." Will Willems is the Sports Editor of the Lebanon Reporter. Follow him on Twitter @Will_Willems. JV - On Saturday evening the JV Boys basketball team also fell to the REd Devils of West Lafayette by a final score of 50-40. Scoring for the Stars was Tristyn Faulk 18, Drew Gott 14, Marcus Fortner 5, Gavin Hawkins 2, and Bryce Kopriva 1.