After two weeks, Wellsville-Middletown boys basketball coach Steve Lasman has high hopes for sophomore Cooper Henderson.

“He will have the ability once he gets the confidence and gets better on his skills,” Lasman said. “He’s a young sophomore with very little playing experience. He’ll get better as the season goes on. But we have confidence in him. He’s a good kid. He came every day this summer and played all of the summer games. He lifts weights every day. I think he has a lot of potential.”

Henderson helped the Tigers start their home season with a 45-20 victory over the Columbia Independent Lions by scoring a season-high seven points, all of them in the second half. He hit a 3-pointer in the third quarter.

“He played a great second half,” Lasman said.

The Tigers reached the .500 mark for the first time this season with the win over the Lions. W-M won its third straight game after dropping its first three games, evening its record to 3-3 with two games remaining before the New Year.

The Tigers will play Montgomery County in the Pink Out game at 7:30 p.m. on Dec. 16 at home. W-M defeated MCHS 36-24 in last year’s meeting.

The Tigers had eight players in the first two weeks of the season. They hope to get senior Logan Pursifull back in January after he suffered a torn ACL injury during the spring.

“We have our strengths and our weaknesses right now, especially with Logan out,” Lasman said. “Our kids know that he won’t be able to play until after Christmas, so we just have to suck it up. We’re playing with a 5-11 post. Keaton Mayes (2022 graduate) did that for two years. With our school size, we have to do what we have to do. We don’t have 25 kids out for basketball. We don’t have kids 6-3 or 6-4 sitting on the bench. We play with the kids we’ve got and do the best you can.”

A year ago, Henderson scored just six points. This year, Henderson is part of a starting lineup that includes seniors Dylan Alsop, Jacob Mandrell and CJ Curd and sophomore Carson Huff.

“The kid is going to be a heck of a ballplayer,” Lasman said. “This is his first year playing varsity, so he’s going to have his ups and downs.”

Henderson said he was happy with the way he played in his first home game of the season.

“I started off a little shaky in the first half,” the sophomore said. “But in the second half, I just really wanted to play well. I just really wanted to turn it up.”

Huff finished with 17 points, including 14 in the first half. He scored 10 points in the first quarter to give his team a 10-4 lead.

“I thought Carson played well tonight,” Lasman said. “I thought he played like a team player. He made some great passes down low. That’s what we want. We want our kids to play together and play as a team.”

The Tigers led 12-8 late in the second quarter before Lasman called a timeout. After the timeout, W-M responded with a 14-0 run that carried into the third quarter.

“We just wanted our kids to play the way we want to play,” Lasman said. “We like to slow the game down and look for a good shot and a good play and mainly talk about defense. I’m more worried about defense than I am scoring right now. To me, defense comes first. That’s what we try to emphasize to our kids.”

Curd scored all nine of his points in the second half. Alsop finished with seven points and Mandrell had four.

Henderson said his team has potential of turning in another strong season. The Tigers returned nine players from last year’s team – including Henderson – that won 20 games and finished fourth in the state tournament.

“I think our team can show a lot of effort when we’re all playing together well,” Henderson said.