Basketball Recap: Friday's Win Is Whitharral's Fourth in Last Five Outings

If Cotton Center wanted to avenge their loss from the last time they played Whitharral, they should've done a better job of containing Paige Smith. The Whitharral Panthers really took it to the Cotton Center Elks for the full four quarters, racking up a 73-19 victory thanks in part to Smith, who went 11 of 14 en route to 32 points and seven steals. That makes it 16 consecutive games in which she has scored at least a third of Whitharral's points.

Another player making a difference was Rylee Kristinek, who made all 7 shots she took to post 17 points and six rebounds. That's the most points she has posted since back in November of 2024.

Whitharral has been performing well recently as they've won four of their last five matches, which provided a nice bump to their 13-7 record this season. The wins came thanks to their defensive effort, having only surrendered 28.6 points per game. As for Cotton Center, they dropped their record down to 3-14 with the defeat, which was their sixth straight on the road dating back to last season.

Whitharral didn't take long to hit the court again: they've already played their next game, a 67-20 win against Wellman-Union on the 7th. As for Cotton Center, they also wasted no time getting back out on the court and have already played their next contest, a 40-21 victory against Amherst on the 7th.