On Friday, January 22nd, the Willow Springs Bears traveled to Myrtle, Missouri to take on the Couch Indians. This would be a challenging game for the Bears because they were clearly outsized in the post.

The first half  of the game was very close as the Bears could not control the board because of Couch’s 6’6” center Derek Martin, who was picking up many offensive rebounds. Also, the Bears could not keep out of foul trouble, and that gave the Indians many free shots at the free throw line. At the half, the Bears were only up by one with a score of 28-27.

In the second half, the Bears did a better job of blocking out Martin and were able to control the glass. With some great shooting, the Bears soon extended their lead. Taylor James scored 15 of his 21 points in the second half to help the Bears get to a 20 point lead by the middle of the fourth quarter. The rest of the time on the clock ran out, and the Bears won with a final score of Coach-55, Willow-68.

The Bears had a great game and did very good shooting in the second half. The Bears made 5 threes and 40 points in the second half. Unfortunately, the junior varsity Bears were not as successful and lost in a close game. These games move the junior varsity to an 8-3 record and the varsity to a 6-6 record.

“I was really proud of our effort on both ends of the court in the second half,” stated Coach Mallow.