BELLEVILLE – Friday night’s Southwestern Conference game between Edwardsville and Belleville West may not have been the easiest game on the Tigers’ league schedule, given the Maroons’ often-stout defensive game.
“Belleville West is hard to score against,” said Tiger coach Mike Waldo. “Clearly, they know how to play defense and they’ve got a great coaching staff, and they’ve got some big guys around the basket and they are hard to score against.”
For the Tigers, though, it was some well-executed backdoor cuts that allowed them to get on a run that saw them get out to as much as a 12- and 13-point lead in the third term and got them to 8-0 in the SWC with a 59-49 win over the Maroons at West’s gym.
“Us being able to get them spread out a little more in the second half because when you have to spread out more it’s hard to play your traditional good fundamental defense,” Waldo said, “and that helped us score some more baskets.
“I thought our guys did a very good job of passing the ball.”
Some of it came from A.J. Epenesa, who led the Tigers with 21 points on the night, but it also came from Epenesa’s skills with the ball. “A.J. can do a lot of things good,” Waldo said, “He’s an athlete, he’s a good rebounder, but that guy is a really smart passer; he’s a really good passer and he’s perfectly content to pass it.
“I thought he did good in that stretch, and I thought Mark Smith did a very good job as lead guard. He has really come on as a point guard, and I think that’s really helped our team, how well he’s done in that job.”
While the Tigers pretty much controlled the second half of the contest, there were a few times when the Maroons seemed poised to try to make a run on Edwardsville, but thanks to the Tiger defense, it never materialized. “I thought defensively, we did a lot of good things most of the night,” Waldo said. “We didn’t give them a lot of easy opportunities and they had to make a lot of hard shots, and I thought most of the night we did a good job.
“Oliver (Stephen) is a really good defender; he does a lot of things good, obviously he can shoot, but Oliver is a very good defender. He covers up a lot of things and the guy’s got the heart of a lion; he really tries hard. Oliver was a really big part of our defense tonight.”
Smith and Stephen both played big roles for the Tigers on both sides of the ball; Smith wound up with 15 points and Stephen had 11, with Caleb Strohmeier and Chrys Colley both having six points on the night as well.
The Maroons’ Tyler Dancy and EJ Liddell led West with 14 points each with Dalton Fox adding five points.
The Tigers went to 16-4 overall, 8-0 in the SWC with the win, while the Maroons fell to 8-11 overall, 3-6 in the league with the loss.
Next up for the Tigers is a Friday night date with East St. Louis at Lucco-Jackson Gym, then two road games at DeSmet Feb. 9 and at Granite City Feb. 12.
SEE POST-GAME VIDEO INTERVIEW WITH COACH WALDO BELOW:
