Hazelwood West Boys Claim A Big Basketball Playoff Win, A Controversial Loss Ends the Season for the Girls

CHESTERFIELD – The MSHSAA district playoffs began with a bang and a bang-out, for the Hazelwood West High School boys and girls basketball teams Monday afternoon at Parkway Central High School.

Wildcat Boys Battle Pattonvile

The Wildcat boys enjoyed a convincing 71-51 win over Suburban North Conference rival Pattonville, while the West girls, due in part to some questionable officiating calls late in the fourth quarter, saw their season come to an end with a 51-46 loss to Parkway Central.

Seniors T.J. Ross and Kane Ledguies were the big stars in the boys win, as Ross led all scorers with a game-high 24 points, including several spectacular driving layups, and Ledguies added 17 points, sparked by a career-high five three-pointers.

“It was a dogfight,” said West boys basketball coach Cary Lewis Jr. "We’re very similarly matched teams, and if we make shots we’re pretty good.

"If they make shots, they’re pretty good."

Lewis Jr., admitted that West was a bit "scared and tense" coming into the game compare to Pattonville, which he described as "loosey-goosey."

"And I just told my kids to just relax," he said. "Don’t worry about anything else but defense, and we would be fine.”

And the coach was right, as West turned up its defensive intensity in the second and third quarters, and outscored Pattonville 46-27 in the middle two quarters.

The key stretches came midway through the second quarter when West went on an 11-0 run to go up 30-21 on the Pirates, then increased their lead midway through the third, when the Wildcats went on an 11-4 spurt that made the score 51-36.

From that point on, the Wildcats cruised to their second 20-point win of the season.

West is now 13-14 this season, and will advance to the district semifinals, where it will face No. 7-ranked DeSmet, the district tournament’s No. 1 seed, Wednesday at Parkway Central with the tip-off set for 5:30 p.m.

“We’re looking forward to playing DeSmet,” Lewis said. “We thought it would be in the championship.

"We kind of feel like we got screwed in the seed meeting, but we will got our chance at them on Wednesday.”

Wildcat Girls Take On Parkway Central

For the West girls, unfortunately the season is over, after a controversial loss to Parkway Central Monday.

“Controversy is a good word for it,” said West girls basketball coach Jim Fleming. “There were some really controversial calls that went against us at the end. I never got full explanation either.

It was definitely a strange situation.”

And the sudden change in momentum from those calls probably cost the Wildcats the game.

They were up 42-37, with just under five minutes left, when a pair of confusing officiating calls changed the game completely.

First, Parkway Central seemed to get a free two points when the officials awarded the Colts a made basket on a play that was called a foul on West’s Amber Hogue.

Initially, Central’s Christine Bergesch was going to go to the free throw line for two foul shots. But after some prompting by a few parents in the crowd, the officials determined that Bergesch made the shot she was attempting and gave the Colts two points.

That made the score 41-39, but if Bergesch made the shot and was fouled, she should’ve been awarded a free throw as well. But no free throw was ever taken, and West was awarded the ball.

That procedure would suggest that maybe no foul was called on Hogue, or that the foul call was overturned and some other call was made.

Whatever happened, Hogue was assessed her fifth foul and not allowed to return to the game.

“They took a long time to talk about it, and I never got any explanation on that,” Fleming said.

Then a bit later, Parkway Central took the lead for good, after an intentional foul was called on West’s Alexis Robinson.

One of the game officials said she pushed one of the Parkway Central players in the back intentionally, and awarded the Colts two free throws, which they made, and possession of the ball, which Central converted into two more points on a jumper by Bergesch.

“That was a four-point swing right there,” Fleming said. “And whatever it was that happened, it wasn’t enough that anybody on our bench saw it.

"I’m still not sure what he saw on that, but that was the call.”

West never really recovered from that point, missing on several three-point attempts in the final minutes, while watching Central’s Alex Partee convert four free throws in the final 50.4 seconds to put the game away for the Colts.

“It’s a hard way to have the season end,” Fleming said. “But we can only blame ourselves."

Fleming said the girls were so sloppy in that first half not how they were when they recently played the same team.

"We played this team three weeks ago, and we were up 20 in the third quarter," he said. "Maybe the girls thought it was going to be easy, and that cost us in the end.”

The Wildcat girls finished the year with a 16-9 record.