An interesting Wednesday matchup between the Eagles and Wolfpack seemed like a must see as it featured 4 of the top 5 players in the state; 3 of them being on the home team while West Valley brought in the talented shooting guard Daniel Hornbuckle. The only loss West has taken in the state was against an out of conference opponent, the Wasilla Warriors. It was the first game of the year and with players out for the Eagles due to injury and other reasons, they didn’t worry too much. They would now face a tough task at home against a determined Wolfpack team set on knocking off the number one seed in the state.

The game started with West scoring on both opening possessions and the Wolfpack responding on both with points of their own from none other than Hornbuckle. It looked to be a decent matchup except for one key factor and that was that West owned the boards. West Valley’s only true big man had a hard time finding position in the paint all night. That led to Huffman, Doutrive, and a few others racking up all the boards for West. At the end of the first quarter, West had a 23-13 advantage while the leading scorer, scoring over half the points, would be Daniel Hornbuckle for West Valley. The game is not out of reach, but on the verge after 1.

Second quarter the Eagles ran away with it and never looked back. With most of their damage coming in the fast paced transition offense, the boys won the lopsided second quarter with a big 31 points to 9 put up the Wolfpack. The Doutrive brothers; Devonnaire and Devante, both accounted for a combined 35 points by halftime. Devante says, “The second quarter is really where we caught our stride. I knew we would’ve had to beat ourselves from that point on in order to lose it.” For the Eagles, it was a quarter packed with great defense, Devante at the rim, and Devonnaire raining three pointers. It was somewhat of a breakout game for the young freshman phenom Devonnaire. He says, “I was feeling it more than usual outside of the arc. I felt like I couldn’t miss when I pulled up for a three.” At the half, West was up 54 to 22.

Coming out of halftime it was much of the same. By the end of the third quarter West had increased their lead by 5. The paint was in firm control by Brandon Huffman who finished the game with a cool 15 points and 13 rebounds. “I had no competition out there at the rim. It was really easy to put in work tonight,” Brandon says. There honestly wasn’t a phase in the game that West was not dominating.

Heading into the fourth The score was 70-33 in favor of the Eagles and by the end of the game it was 79-36. Player of the game honors would definitely have to go to Devante Doutrive who scored 28 points. When asked if he said he thought he won the matchup with Hornbuckle he said, “Yeah, I’d say I did but that’s not what’s important.

We had a great team performance out there and it led to all those runs and the win.” Not only had the Eagles avoided upset and beat the Wolfpack badly, but they kept the young star Daniel Hornbuckle basically in check the whole night. He finished with only 14 points which means he only managed 4 more points in the second half.

To say the Eagles didn’t scheme for him would be a lie. Coach Antonio Wyche tells us, “We made sure to double him and close up any space for him to make plays.” Regions is only next week and the Eagles are looking strong as of late showing no doubt in their performances. It’s fair to say if you didn’t catch the game, you really didn’t miss much.