The Wright City boys basketball team tried to hang with North Callaway in the Class 3, District 7 Tournament on Saturday, but much like the matchup in January, the Thunderbird offense proved too much in defeating the Wildcats 78-57.

Wright City finished the year at 12-12. 

North Callaway moved on to face top-seeded Christian High School, which defeated Lutheran St. Charles in the opening round of the tournament. 

After Wright City senior Sean McDonald hit a jumper in the paint for the first basket of the game, North Callaway’s Tully Thomsen took over on both sides of the ball. The sophomore hit a 3-pointer to take a 3-2 lead. On the Wildcats’ next possession Thomsen got the steal at half-court and took it all the way home for the 5-2 lead. 

The Wildcats struggled to take care of the ball in the first four minutes of the game, turning the ball over four times. Wright City also had a tough time offensively in the opening minutes, going just 1-of-5 from the floor. 

“We came out early and had a hard time converting,” Wright City Head Coach David Evans said. “It’s hard to stay in the game when that happens, but I thought our guys did well to stay in the game early.”

David Liddell tried to get Wright City back into the swing of things in the first quarter. He grabbed the rebound off his own miss and pulled up to get a 3-pointer to fall to cut the lead to 10-5 with 3:30 left in the first quarter. 

Wright City used that momentum to cut the lead to two, 16-14, as Cameron Cole hit another trey and Devon Holmes connected on a floater to close out the first quarter.

The Wildcats hung tight for the majority of the second quarter. Liddell found Nick Boland down low for the lay-in to cut the North Callaway lead to 26-23 with 3:25 to go in the first half. Boland scored nine points in the game for Wright City and pulled down five rebounds.

North Callaway then used an 8-0 run in the waning minutes of the second quarter to break the game open. The Wildcats’ defense just didn’t have the answer for Thomsen, who scored a game-high 29 points in the game. Thomsen was 7 of 11 from the floor in the game. North Callaway shot 65 percent from the field in the first half. The Thunderbirds didn’t let up in the second half, shooting 61 percent from the floor. 

“When a team is shooting like that it’s hard to try and keep up,” Evans said. “It’s hard to come back and defend when they’re throwing shots up and they’re going in. That’s really what it came down to tonight.” 

The Thunderbirds got a huge game from Gabe Cash. The sophomore scored 15 of his 18 points in the second half to help put the Wildcats away.

For Wright City, Holmes led the way with 23 points. 

Saturday marked the final game in the careers of seniors Boland, Cole, Holmes and McDonald. Evans said the group has had a positive impact on the direction of the program.

“When you have a group of seniors that have been in the program for four years, you hope that they take the initiative to lead the younger guys and that’s what our guys did,” he said. “They were role models to the younger guys, and hopefully the next group of kids come into the gym when it opens back up and we’ll have a new group of seniors who are willing to lead the way.”