MOROCCO | It turned out to be a productive night for both Wheeler’s boys and girls Tuesday in the opening round of the Greater South Shore Conference tournament.
Both advanced with easy victories over host North Newton, as the boys won the second game 74-38. Jeremy Truchan poured in a game-high 25 points for the Bearcats (7-4).
In the opener, Wheeler (8-8) used its size advantage in the paint to pull away for a 63-26 girls victory to advance to Thursday’s second round game at home against Bishop Noll.
“We’re hoping for Noll for some revenge,” said Wheeler junior forward Nickole Finch, who finished with a game-high 20 points and 12 rebounds.
Wheeler outscored North Newton 15-4 in the second quarter to build a 30-15 halftime advantage.
“We weren’t hitting at first, and coach just told us to be more aggressive,” Finch said. “We did that and came out a lot more ahead than we thought we could.”
Wheeler held North Newton to just 11 points in the second half and blew open the game with 22 points in the fourth quarter.
“Notth Newton got out to a nice start with a couple early threes, and we talked about going to the boards, giving them a one-and-out as far as offense was concerned,” Wheeler coach Dustin Nelson said. “We were trying to give ourselves second and third opportunties on our end of the floor, and that’s kind of what happened.
“We got to rebounding a little bit, got some stops on defense, got a little rhythm and slowly pulled away.”
Wheeler owned a 44-32 edge in rebounding, as Shannon Eden added 11 boards.
Allie Stevenson scored 17 points for Wheeler, and Shannon Eden finished with 11.
“I thought we did a nice job of balancing the scoring,” Nelson said. “Finch did a nice job inside, and Allie (Stevenson) did a nice job on the outside.”
Allyson Leach led the Spartans (7-9) with eight points.
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