Waterford’s Gavin Hiener makes a move inside during the Wildcats’ 55-46 loss to Southern Thursday at the Harry Cooper Annex. (Photo by Mike Morrison)

WATERFORD – If the Waterford Wildcats are going to have the kind of success they feel like they are capable of this season, they are going to have to take care of the basketball much better than they did in Thursday night’s Tri-Valley Conference tussle with Southern at the Cooper Annex.

The Wildcats turned the ball over 21 times as the Tornadoes pulled away to a 55-46 win in a game that Waterford led in the third quarter.

“We did a pretty good job taking care of the ball in a win against Eastern on Friday,” said Waterford head coach D.J. Cunningham. “We handled the pressure there and for whatever reason we didn’t handle it here tonight.”

Offense for both squads was pretty much non-existent in the opening quarter as they played to a 6-6 tie with four of those points coming from the charity stripe.

The Tornadoes got five points from Jake Wickline to begin the second quarter but the Wildcats would fight back to tie the game at 15-15 thanks to a three-pointer from junior Finn Pennock.

Four consecutive free throws by Southern’s Kase Nelson pushed the Tornadoes back in front before Wildcat junior Gavin Hiener closed out the first half with a two-pointer to pull Waterford to within two points at the break.

Waterford turned the ball over seven times in the opening quarter and after settling down to commit four miscues in the second they got sloppy once again as they were forced into nine turnovers in a pivotal third period.

The Wildcats started the second half in good order as an old-fashioned three-pointer by Hiener tied the game before his two-pointer with an assist from Pennock gave Waterford their first lead of the game.

Southern answered with four consecutive points but back-to-back field goals by Hiener and Pennock gave the home team a two-point lead midway through the third.

A strong drive to the bucket by Southern’s Reed Brinager tied things back up and sparked a 9-0 Tornado run that turned a two-point deficit into a seven-point lead.

Waterford’s Reese Lang banked in a long three-pointer to briefly slow the Southern momentum but a two-pointer by Lane Edwards gave the visitors a six-point cushion heading to the final eight minutes of action.

Edwards connected from long distance to open the final quarter with what would turn out to be the only made three-pointer of the game for Southern and Andre Chandler followed with a deuce to give the Tornadoes their first double-digit lead of the game.

The Wildcats would manage to whittle the lead down to as few as seven points late in the fourth but it wouldn’t be near enough as the Tornadoes won for the second time in three tries.

Brinager led the way for the Jeff Caldwell-coached Tornadoes with 17 points while Wickline added 16.

Waterford was paced by Hiener with a game-high 22 points and a team-high eight rebounds.

Cunningham feels like Hiener has all the tools to have an outstanding junior season.

“Gavin (Hiener) has put a lot of work in and it’s showing,” said Cunningham of his 6-foot-5 inch junior. “He had a great game tonight. We have a lot of guys capable of leading us in scoring in any given game. It just happened to be his night tonight.”

Pennock finished the game with 14 points including eight in the final period and three from behind the arc.

Cunningham was very straight forward about his disappointment in his teams performance as he feels they are capable of so much more.

“We didn’t do what we needed to do to win… we didn’t do our job as individuals and we didn’t do our jobs as a team,” said Cunninghan whose team will be right back in action Friday at Trimble. “We are capable of beating that team but we have got to get better. We’ve got to practice harder and practice better and we will.”