The West Platte girls’ basketball team (10-12) has reached countless milestones this season, but most recently the Lady Blue Jays have snapped a conference losing streak that is nearly two decades long.
West Platte’s Colby Shepardson scored two points versus the Tigers on courtwarming.
For the longest time, the Blue Jays have struggled to take down the Bulldogs but narrowly defeated East Buchanan (12-11) 31-29 on Feb. 8. It was a tight contest but West Platte’s defense that forced 21 steals helped the Blue Jays pull out their first victory over the Bulldogs in nearly two decades on Feb. 8 – four days after they also snapped a similar losing streak to Lathrop (12-12) with a 45-35 win.
“It has been 18 or so years since we had beaten East Buch and 15 or 16 years since we beat Lathrop,” West Platte head coach John Kruse said. “That is a big deal and all that matters, and we are proud of the fact that we did those things and broke those streaks.”
Madisyn Matlick made three of her four attempts from behind the arc to tie with Colby Shepardson with a team-high nine points. Julia Pattison was a menace on the defensive side of the court, forcing seven steals.
While some wins don’t count toward their conference record due to playing the opponents in various tournaments, the Blue Jays have officially beaten six of the opposing seven KCI Conference teams after defeating the Bulldogs. Mid-Buchanan (14-9) is the only conference team West Platte hasn’t taken down as the Dragons defeated the Blue Jays on Jan. 6.
After two consecutive conference wins, West Platte struggled against Plattsburg (12-10) and lost 39-25 on courtwarming on Feb. 11. The Blue Jays had beaten the Tigers 40-35 in the North Platte Invitational on Jan. 25, but the rematch was a different story.
“They did the same thing they did the first time defensively, switching between the 1-3-1 zone and 2-3 zone. I just don’t think we did a good enough job getting open and taking the right shots and kind of just stood there all night,” Kruse said.
West Platte dug itself into a deep hole early with a lack of urgency on offense and Plattsburg took advantage resulting in the Blue Jays trailing by double digits. West Platte’s offense wasn’t clicking – scoring only 14 points through three quarters.
The Blue Jays shot 17.8 percent from the field, missed all 15 of their 3-point attempts and shot 38.9 percent from the charity stripe.
“We weren’t aggressive enough on offense, I don’t think we took a shot until the four minute mark in the first quarter. When you don’t come out being aggressive it’s just not going to be pretty, and we never could get the ball rolling in the right direction,” Kruse said.
The Blue Jays have matched the total amount of wins that they have in the last two seasons combined – with West Platte having eight wins in 2020 and two wins in 2019. The regular season is over for the Blue Jays and West Platte is set to take on Stewartsville (9-13) in the opening round of the Class 2 District 15 Tournament on Feb. 19 at 2:30 p.m.