ELGIN — Coming off winning the Byng tournament last week, the Weatherford basketball team found a way to win Tuesday at Elgin, as they won 52-42.
Weatherford has played Elgin this season, and beat them 59-40 in the Weatherford Classic tournament.
“It was a tough game playing on the road the Tuesday after a tournament,” coach Derrick Bull said. “Elgin is a tough team which plays a really good matchup zone against us. We started off slow, but had a good second half of team basketball with great effort and that made the difference.”
Weatherford built an eight point lead early in the game, but Elgin closed the first quarter on an 8-2 run. Weatherford still was ahead, but only led 15-12 going into the second quarter.
Elgin took their first lead of the game midway through the second quarter, with the score being 20-19 in Elgin’s favor. Cade Jennings buried a 3-pointer a minute later and Bull called a timeout. Weatherford trailed 23-22.
Elgin held for the last shot with less than a minute to play. Weatherford trailed Elgin 29-24 at halftime.
Weatherford outscored Elgin 9-4 to open the third quarter and tied the game, 33-33, with a Jennings 3-point shot.
CJ Nickson gave Weatherford the lead back when he hit a 3- point shot with three minutes left in the third quarter. Jennings also hit two 3-pointers, which helped Weatherford build the lead. Weatherford got stops and scored on the other end, which gave the Eagles a 43-37 lead going into the fourth quarter.
Ethan Sage hit a 3-point shot early in the fourth quarter, which sparked Weatherford building a double digit lead. Weatherford also held the Owls scoreless until midway through the fourth quarter and was ahead 50-39 when Elgin scored.
Jennings was fouled and hit both free throws, helping Weatherford win the game 52-41, the team’s ninth consecutive win. Nickson scored 18 points, Jennings scored 17 points and Tai Vu scored 10 points.
“Not a ton of adjustments were made at half,” Bull said. “We just tried to throw a few different things at them offensively and we executed the game plan well. We also played really hard on defense.”
Weatherford improves to 14-3 and played Friday at home against Chickasha. Weatherford plays its next game, 2:30 p.m. today against Elk City at home.
“We have a lot of momentum right now,” Bull said. “We are just trying to take it one game at a time and focus on improvement daily.”