The Central High School basketball team had a sort of rough end to the pre-Christmas portion of their season.
The Central teams suffered a pair of home Big 8 Conference games to Howe on Tuesday night at the CHS Gym in their home openers as the Lady Lions opened the night with a 56-37 win over the Lady Tigers, then the Lions ended the night by roaring past the Tigers 5341.
Those losses came on the heels of splitting a pair of road games on Dec. 15 against Westville as the Lady Tigers started the night off with a 40-34 victory, but the Tigers got stung by the Yellowjackets in the nightcap as Westville won 55-54.
In the girls’ loss to Howe, the Lady Lions (8-0) led 14-12 after a period and 28-22 at halftime, but they used a 19-8 third quarter to put away the game as Howe took a 47-30 lead into the final quarter.
In defeat, Cambree Bair and Haley Cheek led the Lady Tigers (52) with nine points each, followed by Koda Robbins with seven points, Ayrland Jiles with six points, Hadlie Woods with four points and Keeley Poindexter with two points.
In the boys’ contest, the Tigers (3-4) led 8-7 after a quarter, which became a 24-22 advantage at halftime. However, the Lions outscored them 31-17 in the second half to get the come-from-behind road victory.
In defeat, Devon Baggs scored a gamehigh 16 points and Cade Tucker added 10 points to lead Central, followed by Noah Buzzard with nine points, Isaac Rogers with four points and Joseph Lee with two points.
In the girls’ win over Westville, the Lady Tigers jumped out to a 9-3 lead after a period only to see the Lady Yellowjackets use an 11-3 second quarter to take a 1412 halftime advantage. However, Central outscored Westville 26-17 in the second half to get the come-from-behind victory.
For the game, Bair led Central with 10 points, followed by Robbins with eight points, Jiles with seven points, Woods with six points, Autumn Cernicek with four points, Cheek with three points and Cheyenne Busch with two points.
In the boys’ loss to Westville, the ’Jackets used a 16-14 fourth quarter to rally from a 40-39 third-quarter deficit to get the comeback win.
In defeat, the Tigers (3-3) put a trio of players into double figures, with Baggs leading the way with 17 points, followed by Tucker with 12 points and Rogers with 11 points. Lee had six points, while Buzzard, Connor Walters and Coy Blackburn had two points apiece.
