JEROMESVILLE — Braden West shot the lights out Tuesday night.
West, Norwayne’s junior sharpshooter, matched his own school record with eight 3-pointers as the Bobcats pulled away in the second half for a 58-40 win over Hillsdale in Wayne County Athletic League action at Dickerson Gym.
The 5-foot-10 sharpshooter scored 28 points — one off his career high — as the Bobcats (16-1, 11-0) maintained a two-game lead over Dalton in the chase for the WCAL title. Norwayne and Dalton shared the WCAL title with Smithville last year.
“He’s a great shooter. I’ve watched him since junior high and he’s always been a great shooter,” Hillsdale coach Ben Ferguson said. “The first time we played them Beau Polen hit six 3s on us, so they’ve got multiple weapons. It’s hard to account for all of them.”
The Falcons (13-4, 7-4) trailed 10-8 after the first quarter and 25-18 at the half before West went off in the third. He connected on five treys as the Bobcats outscored Hillsdale 22-16 in the period.
“They came out in a zone and as a shooter I always love when teams come out in a zone,” West said. “I saw that and I knew I had the green light.”
Trailing 47-34 after three, the Falcons made things interesting early in the fourth. Back-to-back layups by Braylen Jarvis and Gabe Stack cut the deficit to 47-38, but that was as close as Hillsdale would get.
Jarvis led the Falcons with 15 points, including Hillsdale’s only 3-pointer. Junior Brady Krichbaum had 10 points, while Stack added eight.
West was the only Bobcat to reach double figures in the scoring column. Polen had nine points and Braylon Arnold added seven.
Norwayne, which moved up to Division II this year and was ranked ninth in the most recent Associated Press state poll, beat Hillsdale 71-26 in the first meeting in late-December.
“The last time we played them it got away from us. Everything went wrong,” Ferguson said. “This time I thought we did a lot more right than wrong. They had one kid get red hot on us, but I thought we played better this time.
“We gave them all we had and it wasn’t enough.”
The Falcons already have more WCAL wins this year than in the past five seasons combined. Hillsdale was 6-64 in the WCAL from 2018-19 to 2022-23.
“I feel like we are getting better,” Ferguson said. “Norwayne is a state-ranked Division II team.
“Playing against a team that like will make us better as long as we learn from our mistakes.”