When Oak Hill and Winona Christian played in the regular season, the two teams split but the Raiders led for almost the entirety of both of those contests.
But in the District 3-4A championship game, the Stars were the one who led most of the game.
The Raiders led for about 10 seconds of the game as the Stars dominated the board and came away with a 44-37 win to claim the District 3-4A championship.
WCS coach Joey Johnson said he team had a solid week of basketball at Winston Academy.
“It was a great week of basketball for our boys,” Johnson said. "We played a tough Kirk team and trailed by 8 at the half. We Played one of our best half’s of the year in the 2nd half and played really well on both ends. I was proud to get out of there with a win. The district tournament was at Winston and it’s always tough playing the host team. We jumped out on them and played well for four quarters. We have to build off last week and play really well again this week. Big week for us because we have a chance to make it to state for the third time in four years.”
The Stars improve to 17-2 on the season and will play Greenville St. Joseph on Wednesday at 7:45 p.m.
Winona Christian boys 44, Oak Hill 37
The Stars had three players with double-digit rebounds and pulled away in the second half to take a seven-point win and the district championship.
Winona led 9-6 at the end of first period and each team scored 10 points in the second period as the Stars led 19-16 at the half. The Stars then outscored the Raiders 17-11 in the third period and led 36-27 going to the fourth. Oak Hill took the fourth period 10-8 for the final margin.
The Oak Hill game was as fun as any game as I’ve ever coached,” coach Joey Johnson said. “We split with them during the regular season but out of the 64 minutes played them, we trailed 62 of them. We didn’t do that this time. They had one lead for about 10 seconds and other than that we controlled the game.”
Austin Horne had a big game for the Stars with a double-double, scoring 17 points and pulling down 10 rebounds. Brannon Hill had 10 pounds, five rebounds, four steals and three assists while Zack Bledsoe had nine points and 10 rebounds. Braxton Leach had four points and led the Stars with 11 rebounds.
“Our kids just outplayed them on both ends,” Johnson said. “It’s hard to single out players because we played so well together but Austin Horne had his best week as a high schooler. Oak Hill had two post players bigger than him and he dominated both of them. I also can’t say enough about how well Will Irwin and Johnny Greene defended AJ Jones. He scored his 2,000th point this week and they held him to 13 for the game.”
For Winona, Will Irwin, Braxton Leach, Brannon Hill and Zach Bledsoe were all named to the all-tournament team while Austin Horne was named the tournament MVP.
Winona Christian boys 51, Winston 26
The Stars took an early lead and cruised to a 25-point win over the homestanding Patriots on Thursday.
Winona jumped out to a 17-3 lead in the first period and outscored the Patriots 10-7 in the second tooled 27-10 at the half. Winona continued to extend the lead in the second half, outscoring Winston 18-10 in the third while both team scored six points in the fourth.
Austin Horne led the Stars with 16 points and five rebounds while Braxton leach had eight points and five rebounds. Zack Bledsoe had eight points while Brandon Hill had seven points, eight rebounds, seven assists and five steals.
Winona Christian boys 54, Kirk 52
The Stars finished off the regular season on Monday with a two-point win over the Raiders.
Kirk led 13-8 at the end of the first period and then outscored the Stars 15-11 tolled 28-20 at the half. The Stars got going in the third period and outscored Kirk 19-7 in the third to take a 39-35 lead into the fourth. Kirk took the fourth period 17-15 for the final margin.
Austin Horne had a big game for the Stars with 13 points and 16 rebounds while Zack Bledsoe also had 13 points and four rebounds. Brannon Hill had 11 points and six rebounds while Braxton Leach had 10 points and seven rebounds.
