Forest relies on sharpshooting and rebounding to trounce West Port

Forest forwards Rashad Shuler and Matt Daniels scored 17 points apiece to lead the Wildcats to a 77-62 win over West Port on Friday night.

Forest, which will be hosting the MLK Shootout on Saturday, improves to 12-5 on the season.

“It’s always important to win county games, we talk about goals at the start of the year and one of those goals is county champions and we focus on that. Throughout the season, we want to make sure we represent the county the best way we can,” Forest head coach Mike Hoffman said.

As for West Port, a tough season continues as they fall to 3-12. Assistant coach Dewayne Murry stepped in to lead the team with head coach Bernard Smith out and Murry was pleased with the team’s effort against Forest.

“I enjoyed the hustle, heart and defense that we showed tonight,” Murry said.

After neither team scored in the first two minutes of the game, Forest forward Karsen Steinbarger knocked down a three-pointer from the left side. West Port would answer with a three of their own courtesy of Garrett Wilson.

West Port took an early lead on a three from the right side by Giovanni Wright and a putback layup by Dylan Luke to take a 8-3 lead. Forest would answer with a 5-0 run and closed out the opening quarter with a 15-14 lead.

Matt Daniels scored five points in the opening stanza for Forest and Wilson stacked up nine points for West Port.

Forest gained control early in the second quarter on two free throws and a three-pointer from guard Xzavion McCoy. Senior forward Rashad Shuler joined in the action with a five consecutive points to give Forest a 12-point lead with three minutes left in the first half.

Xavier Kirkpatrick and Daniels both notched three-pointers in the last couple minutes of the first half before Ronald Graham sank a three-pointer from the top of the key for West Port to bring the deficit down to seven at halftime.

The first five minutes of the third quarter produced hard-nosed, chippy basketball as West Port tied the game with a 15-8 run. Wright and Edmund Wilson led the charge during the run with 13 of the 15 points in that span, including a steal at halfcourt and left-handed layup by Wilson.

Following a timeout, Forest caught it’s second wind and went on a 11-0 run fueled by a pair of layups from Shuler and a couple of three-pointers from the right side by Anthony Rivera.

“Rivera was big coming off the bench again, really shooting it well and he brings a lot of stretch shooting and energy. There is something inside our guys, Zay McCoy is a heck of a competitor. Something about people trash talking him, he gets fired up and it fueled us,” Hoffman said.

West Port would stop the run on a three-pointer from Wilson but the damage was done as Forest enjoyed a 55-45 lead at the end of the third quarter.

Daniels continued his sharpshooting ways with a three from the top of the key in the opening seconds of the fourth quarter to extend the lead to 13.

Following the three from Daniels, Shuler continued his relentless work on the glass as he nabbed a rebound off his own miss and notched an easy layup. Shuler, Tae Floyd and the rest of the Forest team dominated in the paint as their size created a big advantage in rebounding.

“That’s one of the main things I take pride in, my teammates will go ask me to get that rebound and I will. Everybody brings high effort and nothing less, that’s how we do.” Shuler said. The senior forward finished with 11 rebounds and two steals to go with his offensive efforts.

In the final six minutes of the fourth quarter, Floyd began to show his rebounding prowess and strength as he notched five of his seven points in that time span. West Port did not give in and battled to the end as Wright, Wilson and Luke combined for 11 points in the final five minutes of the game.

In line with how the game had gone for most of the night, Shuler would grab a rebound with just over 10 seconds left to close out the win.

Forest used a committee approach to show off their offensive firepower as four players scored in double figures. Along with Daniels and Shuler scoring 17 each, Rivera ended the night with 16 and McCoy finished with 11 points.

Forest will host the MLK classic on Saturday and Hoffman hopes that the win can translate to momentum with a big stretch of games coming up on the schedule.

“We played hard but I don’t think we played well. We just need to tighten up for P.K Yonge tomorrow and then next week we have three big games,” Hoffman said.

Wright led the way for West Port with a game-high 22 points; Luke finished with 16 points and eight rebounds.

According to Murry, the hard-fought loss taught his team a valuable lesson on Friday.

“If they play hard, they can play with anybody,” Murry said.

Both teams will be participating in the MLK Shootout at Forest on Saturday. West Port plays Wiregrass Ranch at Noon and Forest plays P.K. Yonge at 7:30 p.m.