West St. John boys continue to win, beat Fisher Tuesday

Published 12:00 am Monday, January 31, 2005

BY DAVID FOLSE II

Sports Editor

People are running out of things to say when they are asked to describe the West St. John boys basketball machine.

However, West St. John doesn’t seem to be running out of teams to beat.

The Rams winning streak continued Tuesday night with another dominating victory, this time a 86-62 defeat of Fisher.

Dana Stipe led the Rams with 20 points. Kevin Wright added 17 with in the victory.

With the win, West St. John improves to 16-2 on the season and remained a perfect 3-0 in district play.

WSJ head coach Antoine Edwards said he continues to be impressed with his team’s ability to play as a cohesive unit and their never-ending passion for defense.

“I really believe and there performances continue to show that we don’t have any set starters on this team,” Edwards said. “On any given night, different guys are stepping up to the plate and the guys are playing well together as a team. We are continuing to play unselfish basketball. We are playing as a unit, playing together, and everybody is on the bandwagon trying to contribute to us winning.

“Whether it is someone coming off the bench or whatever, they are giving us 8-9 points a game. I just think that it is a plus for us playing together and playing as a team.”

Jumping out on Fisher 25-10 in the first quarter, Edwards said it was a key for his team to grab and build upon their early lead.

“I told them early on that things have seemed to be pretty tight when we went to Fisher,” Edwards said. “I said that we just had to come out and play good man-to-man defense. Hopefully we would be able to force some turnovers and some of those could lead to easy baskets. I also thought that we shot the ball well.”

The new stars to step up in this particular game, Edwards said he was happy to see Stipe and Wright show their prowess on the offensive side of the ball in addition to their continuing solid play defensively.

“If you look at the box scores the last couple of games, Dana probably hasn’t been scoring as much as he should,” Edwards said. “But defensively he has been coming up with big steals every game. Kevin also had a solid defensive game.

“That is just a tribute to us working hard and playing together and all that good stuff that makes a team successful and helps win games.”