Western Boone Jr. - Sr. High School

DOVER - Sitting at 2-11 in late January, the Western Boone basketball team looked within themselves to find a way to turn their season around. They have found a way to give themselves some momentum heading into the sectional, going 5-4 over the final nine games and topping Delphi 45-31 to cap the regular season. "We reevaluated where we were and some of our goals," Western Boone head coach Dustin Oakley said. "We wanted to finish our last nine games with a winning record and we did that. Delphi is a really good team with a winning record and they have some young talent. It was a good win for us, especially holding them to 31 points." The 31 points allowed tied the fewest amount allowed by the Stars this season. It also tied the fewest amount Delphi scored in a game. "Our zone was super effective," Oakley said. "We did a good job of finding their shooters and we did a great job on defensive rebounds. We held them to just one shot a lot. Josiah Smith, Luke Barta and even Kaden Bennington did a great job on the boards for us. We got consecutive stops, got into transition a bit and got some easy buckets." WeBo hasn't played a lot of zone defense this year, but have shown a good ability to switch defenses over the course of a game. During the last nine games, the Stars have allowed just 48.1 points a game, down from 54.9. "It keeps the other team guessing and we have been able to adjust pretty quick if something isn't working early," Oakley said. "It shows our kids are able to adjust and our kids are coachable when we switch things up every week. In the past, I have been kind of stubborn and gone man-to-man the whole time, but I think the kids understand what we as a staff are trying to do to put ourselves in a position to win some ball games. The kids are responding well to that." Offensively, Kaden Bennington had 15, Luke Barta and Marcus Stepp had eight and Josiah Smith had six. "We missed some shots today and didn't shoot it great, but we are really out-scoring teams from the free-throw line," Oakley said. "We did a great job of attacking hard and we hurt them at the free-throw line. That's a great thing for us as well." Western Boone opens up sectional play on Tuesday against host Danville. The Warriors won the regular season meeting 69-43, sparking some of the stretch-run changes the Stars made. "If don't rebound defensively, we don't have a chance," Oakley said. "They had 18 offensive rebounds against us. If we don't find bodies and have five guys wanting to crash the boards, we don't have a chance. We have to take care of the basketball against their 1-3-1 too. We've been working on that all week, so we have to execute out of that. If we can execute out of that and hit some shots, we will give ourselves a chance." Will Willems is the Sports Editor of the Lebanon Reporter. Follow him on Twitter @Will_Willems. The JV Boys Basketball team completed their season on Saturday afternoon with a convincing 72-42 win over Delphi. Scoring for the Stars was Tristyn Faulk 17, Drew Gott 13, Eli Mitchell 10, Gavin Hawkins 8, Bryce Kopriva 6, Luke LaGrange 6, Carter Hanna 5, Marcus Fortner 3, Jackson Grimes 2, and Luke Adkins 2. The JV Stars finished the 2022-2023 season with a 15-7 record.