On Saturday, February 6th, the Griffith Boys Basketball team played against the Whiting Oilers. Griffith beat the Oilers 72-56, behind sophomore AJ Ladendorf’s 19 point performance. These points may have been the most efficient we’ve seen all season from Ladendorf, in which he shot an astounding 90% from the field on 10 shots with 9 makes.

“Each shot built up motivation for the team, as we were getting hyped up after each one,” said Ladendorf.

 The make up of the rest of Griffith’s scoring came from senior Shaun Scott’s 16 points, senior Jacari Phillips’ 12 points, and junior Peyton Thomas’ 10 points. Scott’s 16 points had an 89% shooting efficiency going 8/9 from the field. Phillips and Thomas had notable accomplishments too, with Phillips’ 56% shooting average and Thomas’ 63% shooting average. Scott led the game in rebounding with 8 boards, followed closely behind by Thomas and Ladendorf with 6 rebounds each.

The Panthers also shared the ball a good amount. Scott and Phillips both had 6 assists throughout the entire game. Scott was everywhere on the defensive end as well, having blocked 5 shots this game.

Scott said, “I think Jacari and I connected on a different level mentally. We fed off each other’s energy and it got the ball rolling. I think we got 3 assists to each other in a row and it carried us to the win.”

If the Panthers had continually limited Whiting’s Tony Medrueno, who led the game in scoring with 22 points, they could have been looking at a blowout by 20 plus points. After this win, Griffith has moved to 5-9 on the year and are looking to finish the season with a large win streak and an above .500 record heading into the postseason. Griffith’s next game is a non-conference home game against the #54 ranked team in the state, the Munster Mustangs. The Panthers need to have one of their strongest games of the season if they want to steal a win against the Mustangs.