Sharp-Shooting Depew Rolls Past Walsh

Practice made perfect for the Depew High School boys basketball team.

Shooting will be a big key for the Wildcats this season and with extra emphasis on that in practice, Depew’s shots are starting to fall. That was on full display Friday night in the AdPro Sports Public vs. Private Challenge.

The Wildcats came out firing and never looked back, rolling to a 79-26 win over Archbishop Walsh at St. Mary’s High School.

“It was just good practice,” said Depew senior Nathan Kulesz, who led all scorers with 15 points. We’ve been working on our shots all week and it paid off. We had good ball movement and we were able to make our shots.”

The Wildcats led 21-5 after the first quarter and built that lead up to 43-16 at halftime on a 3-pointer at the buzzer by Kulesz, his third trey of the period. The lead stretched into the 40s in the second half. “We’re starting to gain more confidence,” Depew coach Larry Jones said. “We shot the ball well. We shot pretty well against Akron but tonight – we spent a lot of time during the week on that – we shot the ball well.”

All nine Wildcats that dressed scored at least three points in a balanced team effort. Christian Pagano added 14 points, Daivon March scored 11, Matt Martin 10 and Max Cotton nine.

“I was excited with the effort all across the board,” Jones said.

Depew moved to 3-2 with the victory, ahead of back-to-back ECIC III home games against Pioneer (Tuesday) and Cheektowaga (Thursday). The game against the Warriors is also a first-round game in the Wildcat Holiday Tournament. The championship game is at 1 p.m. Saturday against St. Mary’s or City Honors.

“That’ll be a great test for us to see where we are right now,’ Jones said.

Patrick Tufino scored nine points to lead Walsh (4-2).