A 60-50 road victory Wednesday at Eau Claire boosted the White Pigeon boys basketball team back to .500 for the year.
Riley Olsen led the group with 17 points. Mitchell Moore (15 points, nine rebounds) and Dylan Hochstetler (14 points, 10 boards) were right behind him. Mike Crowl added eight points and David Miller finished with six.
Per usual, Chiefs coach Tony Cholometes, whose team improved to 8-8 overall this year, put a lot of thought into what the nonconference victory meant for his program.
“It becomes very evident in a basketball season that the ability to finish games playing from behind and playing as a team are factors that have more to do with determining a team’s success come tourney time than any other single statistics, any other stat line. This team is starting to believe in those facts, those team concepts.”
White Pigeon was down 29-25 at intermission and 40-36 at the end of the third quarter. A 24-point outburst in the last eight minutes changed everything. The Chiefs took advantage of its 21 trips to the foul line in the game, converting 17 times to finish at 81 percent. Eau Claire made just 5 of 7 attempts at the stripe.
“My hope is that we can keep building upon those premises, those fundamental team strengths, and start to reach our true potential as a total team,” Cholometes said. “Tonight was just another step toward that goal.”