WHITEHALL — Whitehall’s season of breezing through each non-Ludington opponent in conference play nearly ran into a Montague-sized roadblock Thursday night before the Vikings were able to hold off a spirited game from their rival to win, 64-62.
The Wildcats had one final chance to tie or win the game with four seconds to play, but couldn’t get a shot away, allowing Whitehall to exhale and remain unbeaten.
“I got outcoached tonight,” Whitehall coach Christian Subdon said. “Credit to (Montague coach Nick Thaler), he did a great job. I didn’t put our kids in the right place to make the right plays, so it hurt us. I’m going to be better from it. My kids bailed me out, so I appreciate that from them.”
Neither team led by double digits at any point, and momentum swings were plentiful. One of the biggest, in Whitehall’s favor, came in the final minute of the first half. With the Wildcats ahead 26-20 and set to soar into the locker room on a high, Kyle Stratton and DJ Jamison drilled three-pointers to salvage a tie score.
Whitehall led pretty much the rest of the night, but the Wildcats refused to go away. In the final minute, Paul Olson made two remarkable shots, one through a foul, that kept Montague in the game. When the Vikings missed two free throws with a chance to ice the game, the ‘Cats got one last chance, but couldn’t summon any more heroics.
Subdon and star Camden Thompson, who had another big statistical game with 25 points and 16 rebounds, credited Montague and said the Vikings didn’t enter the game with the right mindset.
“We haven’t been on each other at practice,” Thompson said. “We’ve just been taking practice off a little bit and not locking in the whole time. We really needed (this game). It just showed us how much more work we need to put in. If that happens in the playoffs, it’s not going to cut it. Tonight is what we really needed.”
“It’s been a great run and when people start talking about you, you might start to listen a little bit, myself included,” Subdon added. “We’re going to drown that out and we’re going to get back to work.”
Thompson provided the game’s biggest highlight play for Whitehall, leaping to the rim to put an alley-oop pass from Stratton into the basket through a foul. He sank the free throw to put Whitehall up 36-31. He later powered through strong defense from Isaiah Atchison to score another three-point play that made it 47-42.
For the Wildcats’ part, seniors Atchison and Owen Raeth were standouts. Atchison, who spent a lot of the game battling Thompson in the paint, held his own with 16 points and played with toughness while contending with foul trouble. A tough putback in the first half helped stake the Wildcats to that six-point lead. Raeth had 15 points and was a defensive presence as well, as Montague forced 18 turnovers. In all, five Wildcats scored nine or more points.
“When you play games like this, you’ve just got to play tougher,” Thaler said. “I’m really proud of our guys for the effort they gave tonight. I thought we played an outstanding 32 minutes of basketball against a top-5 team in the state. Hopefully, down the road we’ll get them again and it’s going to be another knock-down drag-out affair.
“We got better tonight even though the score doesn’t indicate that. Sometimes you win by losing, and we did that.”
The teams could yet face off again in the district tournament. If Whitehall didn’t feel it was ready for Thursday’s game, it seems likely the Vikings would come to a potential third meeting with a different mindset.
“I think we’re just shocked by the whole outcome, but we’ve been preparing for that in a lot of our close games,” Thompson said. “At the end, it’s a good thing we executed, but (for the whole game), it was terrible execution by us. We’re just lucky we came out of it.”
