The West Falcons played the Muscatine Muskies on Friday, Jan. 5 at West. The basketball duel started off with little points scored, despite the Falcons passing the ball seemingly with ease. West struggled to put up four points, while the Muskies scored eight through the first quarter.

Halfway through the second quarter, the Muskies had their largest lead of the night by nine points, with a score of 16-7. Again, with two minutes and 43 seconds left, the Muskies had another nine-point lead on the Falcons with a score of 21-12.

“When we were down by nine, we knew we were not playing as good as we could and we just needed to get our head in the game,” senior power forward Aaron Gilliland said.

The first half had ended with a score of  21-17.

“We just had brought up our defensive intensity a lot and with [seniors] Brett [Erwin] and Trey [Sampson] running the floor. Our offense clicked immediately,” senior point guard Kenny Clay said.

With a mixture of Muscatine miscues and dominant West defense, the Falcons had a successful second half. They only allowed Muscatine to score 13 points in the second half.

“After we finally picked it up, we locked them down and started to play and just had fun playing as a team,” Gilliland said.

The Falcons, led by Clay, senior Sampson, and Erwin, kept on scoring, never letting off the gas pedal. West scored 28 points in the second half and 45 total in the game.

“We had to pretty much come through with playing man and denying a couple of guys. We stuck to it by believing in each other,” power forward Sampson said.

In the fourth quarter, junior Malik Westerfeld read the offense two times within a minute, running, intercepting the pass, and creating scoring chances for the Falcons.

“We are trying to prove that we’re much better than that,” Clay said.
The Falcons are ranked fourth overall in their conference.

The Falcons won 51-37. Their record moves to 6-3. The next game is Tuesday, Jan. 9 versus Clinton at West.