{"id":9736,"date":"2019-03-02T00:09:51","date_gmt":"2019-03-02T08:09:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wou.edu\/westernhowl\/?p=9736"},"modified":"2019-03-02T00:22:09","modified_gmt":"2019-03-02T08:22:09","slug":"mens-basketball-smothers-the-wildcats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/mens-basketball-smothers-the-wildcats\/","title":{"rendered":"Men\u2019s Basketball smothers the Wildcats"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><strong>Lake Larsen<\/strong> | Sports Editor<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">For the final time in the 2018-19 season, the Wolves took their home-court on Feb. 23. Having beaten Central Washington University early in the season on Jan. 24, Western knew their final match was a must-win to finish their home-season off right.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/files\/2019\/03\/SeniorNight-683x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"228\" height=\"342\" class=\" wp-image-9737 alignleft\" srcset=\"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/files\/2019\/03\/SeniorNight-683x1024.jpg 683w, https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/files\/2019\/03\/SeniorNight-200x300.jpg 200w, https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/files\/2019\/03\/SeniorNight-768x1152.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 228px) 100vw, 228px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">After a senior night presentation for the departing members of the team, the Wolves started to take it to the Wildcats. Within minutes of tipoff, the Wolves sank a couple of baskets to jump out to a slim four-point lead. This minimal lead proved to withstand the precision shooting of Central Washington as the Wolves clung to it. By midway through the half, Western was able to build off of their lead, pushing it to seven.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Wildcats were nipping at the heels of the Wolves throughout the final minutes of the first half. However, every comeback attempt by Central Washington was met with a barrage of shots by the Wolves. Western\u2019s lead was extended to a double-digit margin with only a handful of minutes left. But a relentless final push by the Wildcats shrank that lead to four by halftime.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Wildcats were able to carry the momentum they built in the closing seconds of the first half to the second. The once mighty double-digit Western lead had been diminished to a single point. This minuscule lead was soon eliminated as Central Washington took their first lead of the game. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Less than 10 minutes remained on the clock as the score stood deadlocked at 51 each. After a good free throw and a breakaway dunk, the Wolves were back on top. And this time, the Wolves wouldn\u2019t surrender their lead. Every shot by the Wolves pushed their lead higher and higher. The Wildcats had no answer for this deadly finale by Western. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Wolves had taken a tied game, and 10 minutes later had beaten the Wildcats by a huge 15 point margin. Smiles could be seen across the Western side as the Wolves had blown away Central Washington 77-62. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Wolves finish their season with two more matches against Western Washington and Simon Fraser before heading to the GNAC Tournament.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Contact the author at <a href=\"mailto:howlsports@wou.edu\">howlsports@wou.edu<\/a><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p><em>Photo courtesy of Paul F. Davis<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Lake Larsen | Sports Editor For the final time in the 2018-19 season, the Wolves took their home-court on Feb. 23. Having beaten Central Washington University early in the season on Jan. 24, Western knew their final match was a must-win to finish their home-season off right. After a senior night presentation for the departing [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1094,"featured_media":9738,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9736","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"modified_by":"The Western Howl","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9736","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1094"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9736"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9736\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9738"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}