Boys Basketball: Waubonsie Valley bounces back to top Conant

Updated: December 29, 2011 7:58PM

After getting upset in the opening round of the Jack Tosh Tournament at York Tuesday, Waubonsie Valley’s boys basketball team could have gone one of two ways the rest of the week.

Waubonsie could have let the loss spiral themselves into a nightmarish holiday week.

Instead, the Warriors opted to make the most of the week and have put themselves in position to win the consolation championship Friday with Thursday’s convincing 64-49 win over Conant.

“Sometimes after a loss like that (falling to winless Lyons Tuesday), it can continue to snowball,” Waubonsie Valley coach Steve Weemer said. “I told the guys that their backs are against the wall. We have to win this consolation title now. We put ourselves in a position to do that tomorrow.”

Senior Jared Brownridge poured in a game-high 27 points, hitting all six of his three-point attempts; to help the Warriors improve to 8-4 overall and set up a showdown with South Elgin for the consolation title Friday at 2:30 p.m. As a team, Waubonsie shot 59 percent from the field in the win.

“He’s playing really well right now,” Weemer said of Brownridge. “He’s going to score. Everybody in the gym knows that he’s going to make some buckets. We were more happy with him off the dribble and he even distributed the ball well today”

In the first half, Conant cut the Waubonsie lead to 30-23 late in the second quarter with four straight points from sophomore bruiser Mitch Tedness. The Warriors scored the final four points of the half and the first seven points of the third quarter, however, to push the lead to 41-23 and put the game away.

Tedness scored 16 points to lead the Cougars, but was held scoreless in the third quarter as Waubonsie pushed the lead to as large as 21 points.

“He’s really good,” Weemer said of the 6-foot-6, 230-pound Tedness. “He’s a strong kid in there. He’s just going to get better and better. We were more cognizant of where he was at and tried to put a body on him on the boards. We did a better job of that in the third quarter.”

The Warriors will face a familiar foe in fellow Upstate Eight Valley opponent South Elgin Friday. Waubonsie topped the Storm, 45-42, earlier this month at home in conference play.

“Even though we’re in the consolation bracket, we still want to win the championship,” Brownridge said. “We came out here to fight to reach the championship game, and that’s what we did. We were kind of bummed out (Tuesday). We didn’t play tough that game. But we had to let it go and look toward the future.”

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