Lauryn Snipes takes off to the basket after steal.

by Tracy McCue, Sumner Newscow — There are exciting nights of basketball, and then there are nights like this one.

The Wellington boys and girls easily defeated Mulvane by almost identical scores. The boys won 69-46 while the girls won 65-46 Tuesday night at home.

The games were almost identical in the way they were played. Both Wellington varsity teams got the wrath of their coaches early. They both started rolling in the second quarter and would eventually win by a comfortable margin.

The Crusader boys improved to 9-8 while the girls are 17-0.

Mulvane basketball is struggling at the moment. Neither Wildcat teams have had little luck on the hardwood. The girls are 1-16 while the boys are 3-14.

Nevertheless both teams gave Wellington a competitive game Tuesday for a sparse crowd at Crusader gymnasium.

Wellington girls fell behind early, trailing at one point 11-5. Wellington head coach Eric Adams immediately benched all the starters and sent out the reserves. The Crusaders narrowed the margin with the reserves playing.

The Crusader starters eventually came back in and Wellington would lead 14-13 at the end of the first quarter.

It quickly got the lead into double digits but at the half Mulvane was trailing by seven points 34-27.

The Crusaders never could quite get on track in the second half, but were never in doubt going on to win by 19.

Grace Mitchell scored 22 while Avery Rusk had 15 and Lauryn Snipes 11.

The Crusaders travel to Wichita Collegiate on Friday. Traditionally, the Lady Dukes have had trouble in that gymnasium.

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The Wellington boys opened the game taking a 10-0 lead including scoring the quickest deuce in the history of basketball (Ok, maybe that’s a hyperbole). On the jump ball, Ian King flipped it to Connor Phelps which scored in less than 5 seconds.

The Crusaders would never trail in this game, but Mulvane made an early second quarter run, narrowing the margin to 16-14. Wellington head coach Brian Buchanan called timeout and gave the boys a wake-up call.

From that point forward it was all Wellington. The Crusaders led 35-20 at the half. They would take a 57-37 lead into the fourth quarter en route to a running clock.

Wellington was led by Ian King with 25 and Cade Phelps with 21. Interestingly, Wellington scored 69 points without a 3-pointer.

The Crusaders 9-8 travel to Collegiate against the always run-and-gunning-25-players-on-the-bench Spartans. Tipoff is at 7:30 p.m.

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