Bullpups Dominate Wildcats In Second Half

Sports  Editor  Peter Holland Jr.

1st 2nd 3rd 4th

McP  18 40 58 67

ELD 17 31 34 43

EL DORADO — There won’t be any trap games Friday night as the McPherson High School​ boys basketball team routed El Dorado High School 67-43, thanks to a strong second half. The Bullpups now improve to 6-3 on the season, and 4-0 in the AVCTL Division-III League.

The Bullpups saw different sides of El Dorado.  At first, the Wildcats played like they had nothing to prove with every intention of giving McPherson its first league loss despite missing two of their starters. If it wasn’t for a late floater by Adam Elliott, the Bullpups would’ve trailed by one in the first quarter with El Dorado having the momentum after going on a 7-0 run. El Dorado also didn’t fell too far behind as they trailed 40-31 at halftime. El Dorado’s top shooter Zach Wittenberg knocked four three-pointers in the first half. 

“First half I let them talked it over,” Head Coach Kurt Kinnamon said. “I don’t ever remember being a democracy and these guys talked me into playing some zone trap stuff and that didn’t work out so well for us after they hit their third three. We decided that maybe it was a bad idea and then we weren’t at the mentality to guard.”

The Bullpups finally saw some breathing room in the second half after outscoring El Dorado 18-3, which resulted in a 58-34 lead going into the fourth. It all went downhill for the Wildcats. Wittenberg, who led with 18 points, was scoreless and El Dorado only had 12 points the whole second half. 

“We just guarded better,” Kinnamon said. “We had a little more purpose to what we were doing defensively.”

Seth Madron typically doesn’t turn on until the second half, it was quite the opposite. The sophomore followed through as the top scorer with 15 points, including a couple of high-flying dunks to quiet the crowd. Cooper Courtney added 14 points, and Cody Stufflebean picked up 10. Elliott saw plenty of quality minutes and took advantage of it as he finished seven points coming off the bench.

The Bullpups will be in intermission as they get ready for the 56th annual McPherson Invitational, which will begin next Thursday.

Final Stats:

McPherson: Seth Madron 15 pts., Cooper Courtney 14 pts., Cody Stufflebean 10 pts. Hayes Schmid 7 pts., Adam Elliott 7 pts., Jayton Alexander 6 pts., Eli Pyle 5 pts., Sam Pyle 2 pts. Darriene Gibbs 1 pts.