Saturday night’s NISH and Westgate boys basketball game came down to one word, according to NISH coach Todd Russ.

“Want,” the NISH coach said. “They wanted it more than we did.”

That was evident in the second hallf as Westgate rallied from a 3-point deficit about midway through the quarter and pulled away from the Jackets, building the lead to 11 points in the fourth quarter before holding off a late NISH rally to claim a 65-58 win and split the season series between the two cross-town rivals.

“It was a case of the wants and tonight Westgate wanted it more than we did,” Russ said. “They played to their strengths and killed us on the glass.

“They wanted it more. You have to tip your hats to them.That’s the thing about the rivalry. You can throw the record out of the window and the team that wants it more is the team that is going to win.”

Danny Lewis scored 26 points, including 13 in the fourth quarter, and Kyland Dugas added 11 points as Westgate improved to 11-9 overall with two games left in the regular season.

“Our kids did a good job,” Westgate coach Oliver Winston said. “We playede well, we played consistent.

“It got a little raggedy at the end but I think they gave good effort and it was a good outcome for us.”

The two teams exchanged leads in the first half with Westgate leading 18-10 after the first quarter and NISH tied the game 28-28 at halftime after outsocing WHS 18-10 in the second quarter.

But in the second half, NISH struggled on the offensive and defensive ends and Westgate was able to take advantage.

“We really started concentating on taking the ball inside on them,” Winston said. “And defensively we wanted to keep contact with their shooters. Tey have great shooters and you don’t want them to shoot themselves back into the game.

“I thought we did a great job of knowing where their shooters were and dumping the ball down low and then they missed so many ffee throws that worked to our advantage as well.

Westgate held NISH to 12 points in the third quarter as the Tigers built a 51-40 lead at one point.

It also didn’t help that NISH went cold from the both the field and the free throw line.

‘That’s going to happen. That’s part of the game,” Russ said. “It was the effort that was bad. It was the energy that was bad.

“You start the game off and you have no energy. That’s why I said that it came down to wants. They wanted it more than we did.”

With the loss, NISH falls to 21-8 on the season. Allen Walker led the Jackets with 17 points, Jaterrrius Fusilier added 11 ppoints and Brennan Chatman finished with 10 points.

“I thought we played a fairly complete game and that’s what you want to do heading into the playoffs,” Winston said. “Now we have to do the same in the next game, win that one and go from there.”

For Russ, a game like this is never good no matter what part of the season you are in.

“You can say that or you can look at it and say if you don’t do what you’re supposed to do, you see what can happen,” he said.”