Sparta
The White County Warriors punched their ticket to the Frank’s Christmas Shootout championship game with a 59-48 win over the Liberty Creek Wolves. The double-digit win came courtesy of Cole Sims, who scored 31 points on Saturday.
After some turnovers sent the ball back and back and forth between the teams, it was Tucker Pinion who put the first point on the board as he sank one of two free throws to open the scoring. The Wolves took the lead with a pair of buckets from the floor, but Pinion evened it up with a shot from behind the 3-point line.
It was all White County after that as the Warriors went up 19 – 8 at the end of the first eight minutes.
White County upped its lead to 14 by halftime thanks to Sims’s 13 points. Pinion and Jack Carpenter both sank three from behind the arc during the first half to help the Warriors’ offensive push.
White County came out of halftime and started pouring the ball through the net as Sims sank 10 points in the period. The Warriors pushed their lead close to 20 halfway through the quarter, but the Wolves weren’t ready to roll over and clawed their way back to cut the White County lead to 12 at the buzzer.
The Wolves opened the fourth quarter by cutting the Warrior lead all the way down to nine before White County could find their rhythm again. But, once again, Sims’s hand got hot, and he dropped seven more points in the final quarter to help White County seal the win.
The only thing stopping the Warriors on Saturday afternoon was themselves. They got into foul trouble early with five fouls in the first quarter alone. Several offensive fouls also stopped White County in their tracks multiple times over the first sixteen minutes of the game. By the midpoint of the third quarter, Mason Steele found himself with four personal fouls, and head coach Eric Mitchell pulled the senior until the final quarter when he did, eventually, foul out with less than two minutes left on the clock.
Along with Sims, Pinion found himself in the double digits as he dropped 11 points while Carpenter, again, proved deadly from behind the arc as he sank a trio of 3-point shots.
The Warriors will face Cannon County at 4:30 p.m. Monday in the final game of the 4th Annual Frank’s Christmas Shootout.
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