By JUSTIN BURKHARDT
TopSports.news
The No. 2-ranked Topeka West Chargers, coming off a Topeka Invitational Tournament championship and winners of five straight games, would welcome crosstown rival Shawnee Heights T-Birds on Friday and rallied down the stretch to take a 67-57 United Kansas Conference win.
Junior Prince Lassiter scored 22 points to lead Topeka West in Friday's 67-57 UKC win over Shawnee Heights. [File photo/TSN]
The Chargers would get the game started with junior Prince Lassiter getting to the rim for the first basket of the game and they would follow that up with senior Keimani Paul hitting a 3-pointer to make it 5-0 West right away.
Ken Darting's Heights team would get on the board when senior Jaimarion Cook would find the hoop to make it 5-2 West and would go on a 6-0 run with junior Cam Ross scoring five of his game-high 26 points to make it 10-10.
West would answer with a 9-0 run of its own to make it 19-10 before Ross found the basket to kill the run.
West would then go on a 10-0 run to make it 29-14 as the T-Birds would battle foul trouble and Ross on the bench with three fouls.
Heights would out-score the Chargers 8-3 in the final minutes of the half to go into halftime chasing West, 32-22.
At halftime Heights would be in huge foul trouble, with four players that had three or more fouls.
The third quarter would see each team counter each other before the T-birds would go on an 18-0 run, with Ross scoring 11 points and tying the game and taking the lead and freshman Quincy Dixon would hit a 3 at the buzzer to give the T-Birds a four-point lead going into the fourth quarter after out-scoring the Chargers 24-10 in the third.
But that would be all the T-Birds would have in the gas tank as they would come out in the fourth quarter flat.
The Chargers would get things started with a Lassiter corner 3-pointer. Heights' Ross would answer with a basket but that would be all as the Chargers would go on a Paul-led 12-0 run in which he would score five of his 20 points in the fourth to help his team put the game away.
“He's a Topeka West stalwart,'' Topeka West coach Christian Ulsaker said. "The kid is a basketball coach's dream. The kid just does everything in his power we ask of him. He is 6-foot-6, long, lanky, but can seize the court really well, cuts well. And he's just growing, and in terms of basketball knowledge. So it's really fun to see.''
Lassiter would also add nine of his team-high 22 points in the fourth quarter as the Chargers would out-score the T-Birds 25-11 in the fourth and pull away late to get the 10-point victory and win No. 13 on the season.
“Resilience, that was the big one,'' Ulsaker said. "We knew that Heights, a Darting-led team is going to give you a game. They are going to go on their runs. We've got to find a way to adapt and overcome things. And I thought our players did a good job in the fourth quarter, not hanging their heads and doing what they needed to do.”
“Toughen up,'' Paul said about Ulsaker's message after the third quarter. "You start letting them get what they want. We've got to get back into our groove, slow down, and start executing.”
TOPEKA WEST 67, SHAWNEE HEIGHTS 57
Shawnee Heights 10 12 24 11 -- 57
Topeka West 16 16 10 25 -- 67
Shawnee Heights (7-6, 4-4) -- Ross 8-19 7-9 26, Dixon 4-11 3-3 12, Cook 5-9 0-0 12, Alston 1-8 2-2 4, Scott 0-5 1-2 1, Lee 0-0 2-2 2. Totals 18-52 15-18 57.
Topeka West (13-2 9-1) -- Lassiter 10-15 1-4 22, Paul 7-14 6-7 20, Duncan 4-6 4-5 14, Traylor 1-4 3-6 6, Munganga 0-2 2-2 2, Ware 0-0 1-2 1, Phillips 0-3 0-0 0, Doby 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 22-44 17-26 67.
3-point goals -- Shawnee Heights 3 (Cook 2, Dixon), Topeka West 4 (Duncan 2, Lassiter, Traylor). Total fouls -- Shawnee Heights 19, Topeka West 19. Fouled out -- Lee.
