There was a silver lining to Washington School’s 43-34 home loss to Magnolia Heights on Tuesday night, but head coach David Rounsavall already knew it.
As they have shown all year, Rounsavall’s Generals can play with every team in their district. On any night, each of the four teams in the district can beat the other. And, Tuesday night proved that once again as the Generals and the Chiefs exchanged blows for most of the first three quarters of the game. Then, the Chiefs, exploiting their depth, jumped to a small lead in the second half and sustained it for the remainder of the game.
“They have 11 or 12 guys on their team that can play, and they sort of wore us down,” Coach Rounsavall said. “But, we have everything to play for. It is all in front of us.”
To their credit, the Generals kept coming up big to stay with the Chiefs.
For example, with just two seconds left in the first quarter, Washington’s Peyton McPherson caught a running inbound pass and raced three-quarters of the court to make a contested layup.
Then, in the second quarter, General Joseph Smith put on a shooting exhibition. Smith made three 3-pointers and 11 points in the quarter to help keep the Generals within striking distance heading into the second half.
Midway through the third quarter the Chiefs started to show their might as they outscored Washington 10-5 to take a nine-point lead heading into the fourth quarter.
“We weren’t real sharp to be perfectly honest, but I thought that Washington School had a lot to do that,” Magnolia Heights coach Don Skelton said. “Coach Rounsavall had his guys ready to play, and they played really good. They have gotten better as the year has gone along so a lot of the credit goes to them.”
Smith finished with 15 points to lead Washington. Aidan Jones scored eight. Reed Howe scored five.
The Generals will close their regular season on the road next Tuesday against Pillow.
