Westminster Wildcats Secure Decisive Victory Over Lutheran North Crusaders with Early Blitz
Photos by Leon Algee.
When first-year Lutheran North Crusaders boys basketball coach Dwayne Polk saw Westminster Christian Academy’s team had accepted a neutral site game against his team at Mathews-Dickey Boys and Girls Club this week, he knew what his struggling club was up against. After all, Polk was an assistant at Vashon and has followed the exploits of the Westminster Wildcats as they have carved out a rather impressive resume in recent years.
The Wildcats lost to the Vashon Wolverines for the Missouri Class 4 championship 55-46 in 2021, but came back beat them 39-35 at Vashon the following year in a regular season contest. They then returned to the state title game in a higher classification, Class 5, where they lost to Vashon’s neighboring school, Cardinal Ritter, 50-48 for the championship.
“I’m very familiar with their program and what they have been able to accomplish,” said Polk. “I told our coaches and players we were in for a tough challenge and we had to play with more consistency than what we’ve been playing.”
Unfortunately, for the Lutheran North faithful, Westminster got off to a hot start draining from the outside to build an early insurmountable 16-0 first-quarter lead and essentially never looked back on the way to a 60-36 rout of the Crusaders on Wednesday night. Darrell Crump scored 12 points, while Will Powers and J. D. Robertson added 11 points each for Westminster. The Wildcats were 10 of 24 from the three-point line in the process.
“Right now we have three-point weakness in defending the shots, we’re not getting enough loose balls, we’re not getting back fast enough to defend on defense,” said Polk. “It’s a process. But we’ve just got to keep playing hard as a team. We can quit and fold up like a chair, or we can come out and play harder. The standard I’m used to at Vashon (as a star player and coach) is come out harder.”
The Crusaders did derail Westminster’s runaway briefly, as they outscored Westminster 14-12 the rest of the half, but still trailed 28-14 at the intermission. Westminster coach Dale Ribble credited Lutheran North for making a run in the second quarter, but said he felt like his club still isn’t at its best coming off a decisive loss to last season’s Class 4 state runner-up and West County rival John Burroughs, which lost to Vashon in the state championship last season.
“Lutheran North made a little run at us, but I don’t think we played all that well,” said Ribble, whose club had sustained just three losses, all by a basket or less, until a recent 61-46 loss to John Burroughs. “We had a lopsided loss to John Burroughs, where we didn’t play a very good game, but that may have been more because of them. We did shoot the ball well and that certainly helped us get off to a 16-0 lead.”
Indeed, that was the jump start any club could use. With the win, Westminster improved to 15-4, while Lutheran North dropped to 7-8 with the defeat. Both clubs have big tests looming on Friday Feb.14, as Westminster plays at undefeated Principia (19-0) , while Lutheran North travels to John Burroughs (13-4)..
“I respect Westminster for coming down to the city and playing us at a neutral site like Mathews-Dickey,” said Polk. “I just wish we would have given them a better game. But we’re learning and we’re going to get better.”
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