MONTAGUE — It's difficult to beat a team as good as Whitehall is under any circumstances, but even more so when the Vikings start quickly out of the gates. Whitehall scored the first 10 points of Friday's rivalry game against Montague and never looked back, surging to a 74-34 win over the Wildcats.
Camden Thompson opened the game with a throwdown - he added a high-flying dunk in the second half when teammate Hunter Osborne threw him an assist off the backboard - and followed that with an offensive rebound, which became a Kal Koehler three-pointer. The Vikings (3-1, 2-0 West Michigan Conference Lakes) didn't slow down and built their lead up to 29-9 early in the second quarter.
Whitehall focused on using its superior size and athleticism - Thompson, Koehler and Corde Anderson chief among those advantages - and did so to great effect.
"We play with
some length and we play with some aggression," Whitehall coach Christian Subdon said. "We talk about (how there's) no such thing
as a 50/50 ball. They're 100/nothings. You can't bend over at the waist. You've got to get on the floor. We did that early, and it gave us some easy
buckets."
Whitehall's advantages weren't only clear on the offensive end; they also led to a few short-armed shots from Montague (1-4, 1-1 WMC) as the Viking defenders contested every shot they could reach.
Getting to the basket was again a focus point against Montague as well. The Vikings were extremely efficient on long-range shots in an early-season win over Spring Lake, but they know the simplest path to success with the ball is to be closer to the hoop.
"Everything was cool and we looked like the best team in the state," Subdon said of the win over the Lakers. "Then if we cool off a
little bit, then what? Do you want to just keep jacking up treys or
do you want to use your size and get inside? We're really trying to work on going inside out more."
Koehler was the main beneficiary of that strategy, shooting an effective 10-of-18 from the field and scoring a game-high 21 points. He also had seven rebounds and three blocked shots. Thompson chipped in 19 points, 12 boards and six steals.
Montague, knowing it would be overmatched if it tried to outmuscle the Vikings, hoped to force Whitehall to settle for long-range shots, but wasn't able to do so. Whitehall grabbed 12 offensive boards in the game.
"They've got a lot of size and a lot of physical
guys down there that can do a lot of things to hurt you down low," Thaler said of Whitehall. "We
didn't match that physicality and that's why we struggled on
the rebounding."
Whitehall's Nolan Napier is defended by Montague's Cole Herremans during Friday's rivalry game at Montague. The Vikings won, 74-34.
In addition to the issues with Whitehall's superior size, Montague also allowed, in Thaler's view, too many transition points.
"When you're getting beat in transition and you're giving up easy
baskets, you're not clearing possessions," Thaler said. "Transition
points were probably in the 20s for them, and I don't know if
we got more than four. That's tough to battle when you're losing
transition, you're losing rebounding, you're losing free throws. You're
not going to win many games doing that."
The Wildcats adjusted their offensive strategy in the second half, trying some more dribble drive motion offense rather than their usual ball movement-based attack. It did yield some results, enough that it might be a more regular part of the playbook moving forward. Riley Mulder led the team with eight points.
The Vikings have another conference test Tuesday against Manistee, and follow that up with a Friday trip to face Grand Blanc in a showcase game, but Subdon continues to be impressed by his team's desire to live up to the standards it expects for itself.
"I'm just looking for
us to play at our level every game," Subdon said. "I don't care who it's
against...The biggest thing is that
we want to play to our capabilities at all times."
