Photo by Sam Thiel WWG’s Andrew Quade tries to get past a YME defender during their game on Saturday. The Chargers defeated the Sting 67-48.

MARSHALL – Coming off two games in two nights, the Westbrook-Walnut Grove boys basketball team entered Saturday afternoon’s contest against Yellow Medicine East looking to continue its winning ways. The Chargers came away with their third win in as many days, as WWG took down YME 67-48.

WWG coach Derrick Jenniges said their main goal was making sure they were fresh and healthy and felt they did a good job of cleaning up their mistakes in the second half.

“This is our third game in three days, so just trying to be fresh and give a good effort is really what we were after. I felt defensively we had some things that we could fix in the first half,” Jenniges said. “Coming out of halftime, we did a much better job of locating; YME is an unfamiliar opponent for us, so there were some things that we had to figure out personnelwise. All in all it was a good day, to play three in a row and get three wins is really all you can ask for.”

The Chargers got things started with a 5-0 run before going up 8-3. A 3-pointer by Ethan Mischke and a 3-point play from Anthony Ross then gave WWG its first double-digit lead of the day at 17-7, but an 8-0 run by YME cut the deficit to 17-15 with 11 minutes left.

A 3-pointer by YME’s Bennett Knapper would tie things up at 20 with eight minutes remaining in the first half, but the Chargers answered right back, this time going on a 10-2 run to take an eight-point lead with four minutes left. Another triple by Knapper cut the deficit to five, but WWG went back up by 10 with 1:30 to go before going into the halftime break with a 43-29 lead.

The Chargers continued to add to their lead in the opening stages of the second half, getting a 3-pointer by Andrew Quade to extend the advantage to 21 points. WWG would maintain at least a 16-point lead the rest of the way, as YME couldn’t draw itself any closer.

Jenniges said their key on offense was getting the ball out in transition in the first half before trying to go into the paint more in the second half.

“In the first half, we were able to get some baskets in transition which helped spark us,” Jenniges said. “I don’t think we necessarily shot the ball really well but as the second half progressed, we were able to find the ball and get into the lane a little bit more and get it to our post guys.”

Defensively, Jenniges said with the Sting being an unfamiliar opponent, they couldn’t prepare as much and mixed different styles on the court until they found one that worked well.

“We’ve been trying to mix it up recently; we threw three or four different things out there until one stuck,” Jenniges said. “Not knowing what they’re personnel was going to be like it was important for us to feel our way through the first eight or nine minutes and we were able to do that.”

YME coach Jake Suter said he liked his team’s ability to handle the Chargers’ full-court pressure in the first half which led to transition baskets.

“I think the biggest thing is that we handled their full-court pressure well and we were able to get a couple of easy buckets off it,” Suter said. “Bennett Knapper had a nice first half, hitting threes in the corner and that’s probably what got us to that point.”

Suter added defensively he felt they did a good job in the first half of communicating and moving to defend the ball, but wants to see more consistency during the game.

“It’s hard to defend that many athletes on the floor. In the first half, outside of the run right before the half, I thought our guys really moved and communicated well,” Suter said. “But we’ve got to that a lot more often than we did in the game.”

WWG (10-3) will face Sleepy Eye on Thursday at 7:15 p.m. while YME will face Dawson-Boyd on Tuesday at 7:15 p.m.