Western Boone Jr. - Sr. High School

Western Boone knew it was going to be a challenge to slow down Sheridan and junior guard Trey Page on Tuesday night. But knowing, and then stopping it, are two entirely different things. Page scored a season-high 34 points on Tuesday night, leading the Blackhawks to a 72-44 win over the Stars. Western Boone head coach Jason Smith was complimentary of Page after the game. "It starts with his shooting, he is lights out from 3, so you have no choice but to pressure him, but then he has a really good pull-up game too," Smith said. "It was impressive to watch. We face guarded him for 32 minutes full court and it still felt like he didn't miss." Smith said the hope was to limit Page, and then make some of Sheridan's other guys beat them. But Page got hot early, hitting three 3s and adding another basket as part of an opening 13-3 run for the Blackhawks that had Western Boone playing from behind from the get go. The Stars were within five at the end of the first quarter and within 11 at the half, but could never come all the way back. "We let Page get going early, and a player of that caliber when he sees a couple go in it can be a long night for you," Smith said. "That killed us. We did a great job on everyone else, but he carried his team to a 10-point lead at halftime. I thought we played well defensively, and we were getting good looks on offense, but we missed seven layups in the first half." Western Boone stayed within striking distance for most of the third quarter, but Sheridan gradually built the lead to 18, and then pulled away further in the fourth quarter. Tristyn Faulk led the Stars with 13 points. Beau Sawyer had 12 and Quinn Westerfeld had nine. Carson Nicley added eight. Western Boone had a tough shooting night as a team, shooting 31% from the field. Part of the biggest culprit was the missed layups. Western Boone missed more than 10 in the game. "We are a high school basketball team, so you are going to miss some here and there, but it's something we continue to work on," Smith said. "We begin every single day of practice with finishing around the rim and going against each other and the pad, and we will continue to chip away at it." The Stars hit the road on Friday to face Rossville. Smith said the Hornets are similar to the Blackhawks in a lot of ways, including having an elite scorer. Rossville's Brayden Thiele-Hahn is averaging more than 20 points a game and has scored over 50 points in a game this year. 'They are extremely similar in having one elite scorer with quality pieces around them," Smith said. "It's a great week here where we have back-to-back games against really similar opponents and situations. We will be able to fine tune things we didn't do great tonight and carry that over into Friday." Will Willems is the Sports Editor of the Lebanon Reporter. Follow him on Twitter @Will_Willems.