At the end of Friday night at the West Plains gym, it was guaranteed that one, and only one Canyon ISD school would be sitting atop the District 4-4A boys basketball standings.
One look at what had been going on prior to that indicated that the end result was no real surprise.
Host West Plains, ranked No. 17 in Class 4A by the Texas Association of Basketball Coaches, faced off with CISD neighbor Randall, which was nowhere near ranked but nonetheless tied with West Plains for the very early district lead. The battle of southwest Amarillo turned out to be somewhat one-sided, as West Plains rolled to a 65-53 victory to maintain a hold on first place in the district.
The Wolves (16-4, 3-0 in district) never were that seriously threatened and led by as many as 21 in the second half before a late Randall charge made the final score closer. By then, though, West Plains had already made a statement.
“We talked about playing four quarters with poise,” West Plains coach Kendall Cogburn said. “In years past it’s been a rivalry game and everyone’s fired up. In basketball you’ve got to be able to use your head and make the right reads. I thought we did it for the most part even though it wasn’t perfect.”
It was no surprise who carried things early for the Wolves, at least offensively. They took a 34-21 halftime lead as leading scorer senior Ayden Larra equaled Randall’s point total by himself in the first half, thanks in large part to five 3-pointers.
Larra scored all but two of his game-high 23 points in the first half, leaving no doubt that he was their go-to guy.
“(The Raiders) were in that zone and they say you have to shoot them out of that zone,” Larra said. “That was my mindset coming into it. I had great passes from my teammates and I couldn’t have done it without them. We were very pumped but our coaches kept telling us to keep our poise.”
Cogburn wasn’t surprised by Larra’s first half performance, which fairly typified what he’s meant to the Wolves in their young history as a program.
“He’s a leader for us,” Cogburn said. “He’s always capable of really going off and putting the ball in the hole. When he gets hot we’re very successful.”
That’s been more often than not for Larra, who was recognized for a milestone after the game. Although it didn’t happen against Randall (4-17, 2-1), Larra was given a commemorative basketball for being the first player in the school’s four-year history to reach the 1,000-point career milestone.
The Wolves waited until they were at home, appropriately against their nearest rival, to remember it.
“It’s a lot of hard work for sure, and it’s just surreal,” Larra said. “I couldn’t have done it without my teammates, my coaches and my family. I had an idea about it. I was at about 800 before the season started and I hit it about two games ago and wanted to celebrate it tonight.”
While Larra didn’t hit a shot from the floor in the second half, sophomore Beckett Jones more than compensated. He scored 17 of his 19 points after halftime, carrying the Wolves in the third quarter with 12 points.
Kaden Hooker scored 10 points for West Plains.
Randall was coming off a surprising win over another CISD school, beating Canyon 63-61 at home two nights earlier. The Raiders couldn’t quite muster that same momentum against West Plains.
“It was a really good quality opponent we played tonight,” said Randall coach Trevor Johnson of West Plains. “It was a state tournament type team. Having Canyon and West Plains back-to-back is a pretty tough task but I was proud of how our guys battled.”
Eddie Cruz led Randall with 14 points and Braylon Thompson had 12.
