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WHITE PIGEON — Even though it didn’t translate into a win, Cassopolis’ boys basketball coach Charles Superzynski liked the fight he saw out of his Rangers in Wednesday’s 69-52 Southwest 10 Conference loss at White Pigeon. 

Cassopolis falls to 10-7 for fourth place in the Southwest 10 and 12-8 overall. White Pigeon improves to 13-4 in the league for third and 15-6 overall. 

With only Friday’s regular-season and league finale at Centreville remaining before next week’s Division 3 district tournament at home, Superzynski feels his team is turning the corner and starting to play its best basketball.

“White Pigeon transitioned well off some of our misses in the first half. We’re a three-point shooting team and we’re in trouble if we don’t get back on long rebounds. I thought we did a much better job though in the second half of making shots, attacking the basket and getting their big guy (Wesley Roberts) in foul trouble with four early in the fourth quarter,” Supercyznski said. 

The opening eight minutes saw the two sides trade buckets for most of the period with White Pigeon managing a narrow 15-12 lead. 

White Pigeon put the defensive clamps on Cassopolis in the second quarter by limiting its guests to just three points. Meanwhile the Chiefs scored 16 points to build themselves a 31-15 halftime advantage. 

Cassopolis came out on fire in the third, draining five of its nine three pointers on the night in that span. The Rangers’ good marksmanship from outside helped them outscore the Chiefs 23-15 in the stanza and whittle its deficit to 46-38 entering the fourth quarter.

Cassopolis managed to slice its deficit down to  just four, 49-45, with a little over five minutes left in the game on Trevon Peterson-Evans’ finger-tip roll layup.

White Pigeon, however, got back-to-back three pointers from Josh Davidson, who ended the night as the game’s high scorer with 31 points. 

Davidson, a senior, made 11 total field-goal attempts, including four triples, and swished 5-of-6 free-throw tosses.

White Pigeon closed the contest with a 23-14 scoring advantage over Cassopolis during the fourth quarter. 

Wes Roberts added 10 points for White Pigeon, while Jordan Pisco and Mekhi Singleton added nine apiece and Ty Strawser had six. 

“All three of their kids up top (Pisco, Singleton and Davidson) can shoot the basketball and they are very athletic. They are a good basketball team with six seniors and I don’t have even one,” Superzynski said. 

“We’re very young, but our kids are starting to figure things out while they take their lumps. They are having fun out there and the game’s not moving as fast for them any longer. Lucas Williams has been incredible for us scoring wise. There are nights where we are starting three freshmen. When we are all clicking we can be a really good team.” 

White Pigeon made 24 field-goal attempts and netted an impressive 17-of-20 (85 percent) free-throw attempts. 

Peterson-Evans paced Cassopolis in the scoring column with 16, including 14 during the second half. Sophomore Lucas Williams netted 15, Jaylen Pratt tossed in eight and Ayden Gillam added six. 

White Pigeon outrebounded Cassopolis 34-23. 

Cassopolis made a total of 21 field goals and went to the free-throw line just once and made the freebie. 

Pratt had six rebounds, two assists and one steal for the Rangers. Williams added five boards, a pair of assists and one steal. Peterson-Evans had three rebounds and Gillam added five rebounds and two steals.  

White Pigeon coach Shawn Strawser agreed that experience played a big part in his team’s win.

“Cassopolis has a great group of young players who are going to be really good here the next couple of years. We have a lot of experience on our team. Josh has been on varsity a while and tonight he stepped up and gave us one of the best games of his career. Our defense was pretty good tonight. We gave up some easy buckets in the second half and they were able to get close. It was nice to see our defense step up on a bad shooting night,” Strawser said. 

White Pigeon is scheduled to compete in the same district at Cassopolis next week. The Chiefs will face Niles Brandywine in one of two semifinal contests scheduled for Wednesday.