District champs ready for playoffs

WAELDER — It’s easy to say the Wildcats have had their share of accomplishments this season. Tournament wins, wins over state-ranked opponents, district titles – you give that to any other team in Gonzales County and some may consider that a success.

But that’s not Waelder Wildcat success. And although winning tonight will be one step towards their ultimate goal, having one playoff win isn’t the measuring stick of success.

“This group of guys, they’re not ready to quit,” head coach Brandon Howard said. “They’re not ready to go home and start working on offseason stuff.”

After taking home the district title last week, the Waelder Wildcats have been in the gym, fine-tuning their game whether it be the physical or mental parts of basketball.

On Monday, Howard traveled to watch Knippa play and scout their players.

“They have a pretty solid team,” he noted. “[Their] post player looks like about 6’ 3”, 6’ 4”, pretty big guy.”

Howard also mentioned how the Rockcrushers like to move up and down the court, though when they get into that half court offense, Knippa wants to feed their big man as much as possible.

“As far as changes [to our game plan], I don’t think we have many changes,” he said. “Like I said, [if we] play our brand of basketball, which is Waelder basketball, defense, transition offense, we’ll be fine.”

The Wildcats have been firing on all cylinders as of late, with their last lass against Dime Box Jan. 6.

“We’re playing good basketball,” Howard said. “We want to play good defense and it pretty much will lead to our offense. As far as from the beginning of the season to now, I think we’re progressing pretty well.”

“I think collectively as a team we’ve made a huge jump,” he continued. “We have players that come off the bench and have been a tremendous help, either the rebounding, playing defense or just hitting big-time shots at clutch moments and I think as a team we’ve stepped up to the plate pretty well.”

Tonight, Knippa is up on the metaphorical mound and the Wildcats are hoping to hit a home run against the Crushers. Though hitting that home run isn’t going to come easily. After all, the ‘Cats are only a few missteps away from that offseason training Howard alluded to.

“It’s win or go home now,” he urged. “It’s not, ‘oh we can do better next week,’ or ‘we can do better the next game.’ You win, you move on, you lose, you go home and get ready for the offseason.”

Although the Wildcats have their eyes set on San Antonio, their focus tonight has to be in Pleasanton against Knippa. Howard intends on reminding them.

“[I] just let them know ‘if you lose you’re going home.’”

Other than practices, the next time Waelder wants to do something basketball-related at home is a celebration of a title.

Tonight’s game is scheduled to tipoff at 6 p.m. at Pleasanton.