West Oso Falls Short of Trip to Austin

It was a disappointing finish to a fantastic year for the West Oso Bears.

The West Oso Bears were down 8-1 to the Stafford Spartans just two minutes into the game, and they failed to get that gap below five from there on.

Paul Woods(seen here with the second place trophy) lead the Bears both on the court and off the court in his senior season.

The Spartans came in totally on their game, and made the Bears stray far away from theirs.

“We just didn’t get it together. We were rattled from the get-go and couldn’t get bounces to go our way, couldn’t get several calls to go our way. So it was one of those nights. I was saddened that we waited for this last game,” said West Oso head coach Arnold Flores after losing 61-32 to Stafford.

Rattling the Bears early was exactly what the Spartans wanted to do coming into this game. “We took away some of their strengths,” said Stafford head coach Eric Jackson.

It was a sad finish to a terrific career for senior Paul Woods. Woods, whose character and attitude far outweigh his tremendous skills on the court, scored just six points in a West Oso uniform.

Coach Stephens said that the key to Stafford’s victory was shutting down Woods, “We tried to (deny Woods). It didn’t work because he got some touches, but they weren’t able to get the ball inside because of the ball pressure on the outside.”

At the end of the game, Woods grabbed the Region IV Championship trophy and hoisted it above his head, bring the West Oso crowd to their feet with feelings of accomplishment and disappointment.

Paul then handed the trophy to it’s rightful owners, but continued to show true sportsmanship by encouraging his teammates to congratulate to Stafford on their achievements.

Junior guard Maurice Wiltz lead the game with 25 points.

The Spartans were lead by junior guard Maurice Wiltz, who scored a game high 25 points, while another junior guard in Phillip Pete added 18.

The Bears could sense the end of their run at the program’s 10th trip to Austin for the State Championship at the end of the third quarter, when the scoreboard showed just two points in the period for West Oso. In the same quarter, Stafford put up 17 points.

This game was also the last for guard Markeith Smith, who had six points in the loss, and guard Shedrick Howard who will now be moving onto bigger in better things.

“We thanked the seniors. The seniors had wanted to take another step forward to get back to Austin. But they took us completely out of our game plan,” coach Flores said.

Although they are losing arguably their two best players to graduation, Juniors Bryson Williams and William Tortello will come into the 2009-2010 season with added experience and leadership.

Sophomore guard Willie Harper will most likely take over the role as the playmaker for the Bears next year, after having  flashes of outstanding play this season. Harper finished with a team high 8 points.