White Pine basketball ousted in 2A South Semifinals

The White Pine boys basketball team won eight of its final nine games to earn the No. 2 seed in the 2A South Divisional playoffs and earn a first round bye.
However, as the team directly advanced to the semifinals, the Bobcats were unable to continue their momentum, losing to No. 3 Lincoln County, 38-29 on Feb. 14 at Green Valley Christian.

“Not a great day to have your worst shooting day of the year,” head coach Justin Locke said on Feb. 18. “We just couldn’t find the ball into the basket.

“(Lincoln County head coach Sean Fitzsimons) had a little wrinkle in what they were doing with our bigs by doubling us. It was coming from different angles at times.

It was not the ending Locke and his team had hoped for, having goals further beyond from reaching the divisional semifinals.

“Would have been nice to make the state tournament for the first time in a while with this group,” Locke said. “And then how we’re going to miss the guys that aren’t going to be there next year as well as how we, as a coaching staff and players, will come back next year.”

Overall, White Pine went 16-10, including 12-4 in 2A South play to finish second in the standings.

Locke said it is a typical season, in terms of building a path for success late in the year.

“You’re trying to find out what your team is and then how you build that momentum throughout the season, and maybe not peak too early” Locke said. “Definitely felt like we continued to improve on the things we weren’t doing well, and trying some of those things, and really started to figure some stuff out.”

That stretch of winning eight of the team’s final games also culminated in winning 11 of its final 13, all against league competition.

And, that is with Locke rotating between seven players, with a couple switching between junior varsity and varsity.

However, the one game that sticks out among them all is the 65-31 win against Awaken Christian on Jan. 10 because of the players executing something that has hardly been achieved in Locke’s time as head coach: overcoming zone defense.
“That game was the first time we had done that in my tenure, and as well, seeing some shots and it was just that we kind of opened up more than you think, to run an offense fast by going a little slower. That was definitely a turning point offensively, that we took into our league components.

“We kind of struggled against zone offenses, really, during my tenure because we always play man and practice against man. A lot of teams in our league play zone but we haven’t had that threat of three-point shooters in the past. This year we had some guys that put in some work on that as they made more 3s this year.”

White Pine had three players in double figures, led by senior Zephen Nicholes’ 18 points. Senior Mo Van Tassell and junior Matt Thompson added 16 points in the win as the Bobcats shot 47% overall compared to the Lions being limited to 19% shooting.

Now going into the offseason, most of Locke’s players are getting set for their respective spring season sports.

However, he hopes that the returners still have the motivation to take the program to new heights after the early playoff exit.

“That’s always the hope of a successful season, and loss like that will motivate your core group to come back stronger and put in that work, you know. But the reality is, we have a lot of two or three sports athletes that have to manage their time between their sports.

“It’s going to take some guys stepping up. Not so much, maybe from who’s going to be returning to varsity, but seeing that those JV sophomore players that really need to go put in some of the work this offseason.”