SM East turns back SM South

Friday December 5, 2008 7:00 PM
Team (Record)	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	Total
Shawnee Mission South (8 - 11)	9	8	17	19	53
Shawnee Mission East (18 - 7)	18	12	13	23	66

An extraordinary individual effort by Shawnee Mission South’s Will Spradling was generating buzz outside both locker rooms Friday night, but it was Shawnee Mission East’s balanced team effort that generated the victory.

Spectators from both schools packed the bleachers on all four sides of the SM East gymnasium well before tipoff of the teams’ season opener.

And while SM East won 66-53, both sides put on a show.

The star for SM South was Spradling, a 6-foot-2 junior point guard who has already given an oral commitment to Kansas State. He scored a game-high 35 points while doing all he could for as long as he could to keep his Raiders in the game.

“I’ve never seen a kid that can single-handedly carry a team like that,” SM East senior Jack Slaughter said. “It seemed like everything we threw at him, he had an answer.”

Few of those 35 points came easily. Up against an aggressive SM East man defense, Spradling showed a quick release and deft touch on jumpers from varying distances — including one three-pointer from way outside the arc.

“Will was just phenomenal,” SM East coach Shawn Hair said. “He had 35, and I thought, to be honest with you, we did a pretty good job (defensively) out there. … But man, he hit some big shots.”

The problem for SM South is that Spradling is the team’s only returning starter and, for that matter, only returning varsity contributor period, Raiders coach Pat Cormack said.

So SM East put its experience to work.

Slaughter, a 6-4 senior who made a few starts last season, scored a team-high 21 points for the Lancers. Senior Winn Clark, a returning starter, scored 17. And seniors Marcus Webb and Charlie Ludington, both returning starters, added 12 and nine points, respectively.

“It’s a great team win,” Hair said.

SM East pulled ahead in the middle of the first quarter and led the rest of the way. Clark scored eight points in the opening period and helped the Lancers to an 18-9 lead.

Spradling kept the game competitive. He scored nine points in the first 4 minutes, 19 seconds of the third quarter and cut the Raiders’ deficit to 36-32. After SM East had widened its lead again — to 54-38 with 4:26 left in the fourth quarter — Spradling answered with seven points during a 9-0 Raiders run that cut their deficit back to seven. But it wouldn’t get any closer after that.

submitted by RYAN YOUNG - 2008-12-05 23:40:01

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