Felicity’s Garrett Taulbee scored eight points and secured 12 rebounds in a win over Williamsburg.

Felicity’s Garrett Taulbee scored eight points and secured 12 rebounds in a win over Williamsburg.

A strong start and a strong finished propelled the Felicity-Franklin High School boys basketball team to a win over the Williamsburg Wildcats on Tuesday, December 15.

Felicity jumped ahead 10-4 after one period. The Wildcats outscored the Cardinals 35-30 over the next two quarters, trimming the host’s lead to just one point entering the fourth quarter.

Felicity’s defense stood tall again in that period, holding the Wildcats to just four points. Felicity would win the contest 53-43.

“I was satisfied with the effort and the energy,” Felicity head coach Jason Thompson said. “I thought our kids knew that was a game that we should win. I think that their focus was good. My uncle had been in the hospital, and so they were kind of playing with a purpose. We didn’t have Colton Stamper either. We had two guys out. They were fired up and they had something to play for. They really came out, executed, and performed at a high level.”

Like the Cardinals, Williamsburg also had a few faces missing from the bench.

“We were missing a couple guys [who were] quarantined tonight, had some new guys starting and a couple guys fresh off of quarantine,” Williamsburg head coach Dan McKibben said. “A little slow start there. Then we settled down and chipped away. Had the lead a couple times at one point, just didn’t make some plays at the end.”

Felicity outscored Williamsburg 13-4 in the final period. They held a 23-8 advantage during the first and fourth quarter.

“One thing we try to do is be good in defensive transition,” Thompson said. “In our conference, if you can get back and stop teams from running out on you, you have a pretty sustainable chance…For most of the teams in our league, if you can stop transition offense, you have a chance to be pretty successful. I think we really focused on that coming out of the locker room in the first quarter, and that was pretty much the talk at the end of the third quarter.”

Statistically, Felicity was led by Nathan Baker, who tallied 19 points for the Cardinals.

“I had big expectations for him,” Thompson said. “With COVID and the way that pushed everything back, he got to us late because he was running cross country. I gave him a challenge on a few things, pretty simple things: If you’re open, shoot it. Have confidence. Stop worrying about failure and only concern yourself with success.”

Carson Crozier tallied 14 points. Garrett Taulbee scored eight points and grabbed 12 rebounds.

Williamsburg’s Carter Sunderman tallied a team-high 12 points. Dan Jones finished with nine, and Alex Ervin added eight.

“We had some guys step up,” McKibben said. “Carter Sunderman hit a couple shots. Alex Ervin hit a couple shots. Chris Selm did a nice job in the second half rebounding against some kids who were bigger than him. Those are three areas right there that were positives.”

Chris Selm also added nine points for the Wildcats, who returned to the court later in the week to take on Clermont Northeastern.

Williamsburg picked up another win in that contest, defeating CNE 52-42.

Sunderman scored 19 points in that game. Jones added 13, with Collin Klopfstein totaling 11 points.

“Right now our goal is to get better every night out, try to do something that’s an improvement from the previous night,” McKibben said. “I felt like we did that [against Felicity]. We did some things well, a lot of work to do, but they understand that it’s a work in progress.”

Felicity dropped a 60-55 road contest to East Clinton on Friday, December 18. Crozier tallied 28 points and nine rebounds, but Branson Smith scored 38 points, including 13 from the free-throw line, for the host Astros.

“He’s a really good player,” Thompson said. “He gets to the line a lot. Not fouling is something that we have to work on.”

In that game, Smith made more free throws (13, on 17 attempts) than Felicity took (12, six of which were made).

Crozier only had one free-throw for the Cardinals, who saw a pair of starters get into foul trouble that limited their minutes.

“Carson shot one free-throw, that’s not like him,” Thompson said. “He usually gets to the line a lot. We got Stamper back, but Stamper only played 11 minutes. Taulbee only played 15 minutes.”

In that game, Felicity shot 55 percent (22 of 40) from the field. The Cardinals’ shooters are tied for third in the SBAAC as a team, connecting on 46.8 percent of their attempts from the field.

“Our shot selection is really good,” Thompson said. “We’re getting the shots we want. We’re just not getting enough of them. We have to find ways to get more possessions.”