Williamsburg senior Josh Wells has been the Wildcats most steady player this season.
Williamsburg senior Josh Wells has been the Wildcats most steady player this season.

By Chris Chaney
Sun staff

A balanced offensive attack has been a blessing and a curse for the Williamsburg Wildcats through the first two months into the 2014-15 season. With 10 players averaging at least a field goal per game, opponents have to account for a variety of scoring options, but they know there isn’t a prolific scorer who will take over a game singlehandedly.

“It’s a good thing/bad thing because we are balanced,” head coach Dan McKibben said. “Other teams have to guard six or seven guys, but we really haven’t had that one person stand up and be our go-to player, which you need coming down the stretch of a game.”

Josh Wells, a senior swingman, has been the closest Williamsburg has had to that go-to guy. The 6-foot-3 forward is averaging 10.6 points per game, 7.5 rebounds, 2.1 steals and 2.0 assists.

“Wells has been our steadiest player,” McKibben said. “He’s averaging in double figures (points) and he’s been by far our best rebounder. He’s a quiet leader; he leads by example.”

That leadership is something that McKibben and his staff are happy to see given Burg’s youth. The Wildcats start three freshmen and have a roster made up mostly of first-year varsity players. That relative inexperience led to some rough patches throughout the middle of the season, but their resiliency in the Southern Buckeye Conference National Division has them in second place heading down the home stretch.

“We’re kind of where we thought we would be,” McKibben said. “We’ve been inconsistent throughout the year; some games we’ve looked really good, sometimes we make a lot of mistakes. That is to be expected with a lot of first-year varsity players.”

The Wildcats hold a 6-9 overall record, but their 4-2 mark in the SBC has them in position to wrap up second place behind undefeated Georgetown.

The Wildcats’ hosted the G-Men on Feb. 3. That result was not available at presstime.

“Our league has gotten quite a bit better this year,” McKibben said. “Georgetown’s better, Bethel’s improved tremendously, Blanchester’s improved, so every night we’ve got to prepare for a battle.”

Their next contest will come on Friday night when they travel to Blanchester. In the first battle of the Wildcats, Evan Barge stepped into that “go-to guy” role for Burg, scoring a game-high 24 points. Freshman Landen Ridener, the team’s leading scorer, put up 16 points, and Blake Vize added 10 in a 67-66 nailbiter.

Burg has shown they can score when their offense is clicking, having topped the 70-point barrier three times, including their most recent game on Friday, Jan. 30 in a 72-56 win over Clermont Northeastern.

That potent offense is something McKibben hopes will continue over the last three weeks of the regular season and leak into the postseason tournament.

“We hope to have played well against Georgetown and maybe get some help with someone else beating them one time to get a share of the league title,” McKibben said. “Definitely, if we can’t win the league, we want to get second place, but it is a tough stretch.

“We hope to get on a roll and go through a stretch where we’re playing pretty well and pretty consistently.”

The Wildcats will play three games following the conclusion of league play before the sectional tournament kicks off, including one against Old St. Rt. 32 rivals Batavia and another against a possible postseason opponent in St. Bernard.

Williamsburg will wrap up their regular season at the Southern Buckeye Conference crossover tournament where teams from the National Division play their counterparts in the American Division on Feb. 21 at Western Brown.