Basketball falls in second round

The 2023 Wimberley High School Texan varsity men’s basketball team is a senior heavy team. Seven seniors — three of which joined the squad once football season concluded — led the team through a tough district season losing only two games to eventual champion Boerne High School.

“The playoffs started early for us,” shared Head Coach Mike Whitten. “In a close district, we needed every win to solidify second place. Davenport stayed in contention to the end and Bandera was much improved and is on its way up. The second half pressure helped get us ready for the playoffs.”

After a first round playoff win versus Young Men’s Leadership Academy, the Texans found themselves in a familiar matchup with the Stafford Spartans in the second round. The teams split their two meetings in the most recent five years, and this year’s edition found the Spartans ranked 22 in Texas’ class 4A. Cuero served as the neutral site backdrop for the game.

“I thought we had a really good game plan going in,” said Whitten. “The guys executed that plan and did everything we asked them to do. They fought hard and played with passion. They never thought they didn’t have a chance to win.”

The Texans went up 5-0 early and brought the Texan faithful to their feet in excitement. Stafford came back behind their three bigs — 6’4” Glenn Bishop, 6’5” Justin Ago and 6’6” Braden East — to lead by the end of the first quarter 12-10.

“Our strategy kept them down for the first half. The guys did a good job of collapsing in on the post to deny the pass inside under the basket for the easy points. It worked until we accumulated some fouls and had to play undersized for some of the second period,” said Whitten.

The half closed with the Spartans ahead 2418.

The third quarter was not kind to the Texans. Officiating, frustrations and physical play led to emotional responses and fouls, including a few of the technical nature. Stafford extended its lead to 44-28 going into the fourth.

Even with the adversarial conditions, the Texans played strong. Scoring runs for both teams made for fluctuations on the scoreboard between a 12 and 20 point lead for the Spartans. The Texans pulled to within a dozen nearing the end of the contest but could not break into the single digits, finally succumbing to the Stafford size advantage 61-46.

Whitten recalled the hard work and results of the team over the past couple of years.

“We’ve been really consistent for a couple of years,” he said. “ The kids did a great job, managing back to back single loss seasons. It was a fun year and I hope they can look back on it as an awesome season. It’s been a blast getting to coach this team and the young guys have been given a great example. They’re hungry to maintain the tradition and continue to build the program.”

Miles Schleder scored 24 of the Texan points. He finished the season fourth in the nation in made three-pointers (149,) led the district in total field goals (242,) steals (2.9) per game and points per game (21.6) Luke Watts dished out assists at a district leading 4.1 per game while Dane Hennessee (7.0) and Colin Fisher-Swan (6.2) ranked third and sixth respectively in rebounds averaged per game. Hennessee (11.4,) Watts (10.9) and Thomas Watson (10.9) finished eight, nine and 10 respectively in average points per game.

The Texans finished the season in second place with a record of 26-8 overall, 10-2 in district.