A put back wound up being the back breaker that eliminated the Whitehall boys basketball team from the district playoffs, thereby ending their season.

With about 20 seconds remaining in the game, East Stroudsburg North guard Arian Azemi drove to the basket and put up a shot that was eventually corralled by Devontea Wiggins, whose put back gave the Timberwolves a 52-50 lead.

Mikey Esquilin raced down the court to try to get the equalizer, getting all the way to the basket, but his layup attempt was blocked, securing the win for the Timberwolves, who will now play for the district championship.

The Zephs didn’t score a bucket in the final 4:50 of the game. Head coach Jeff Jones said that turnovers and missed opportunities plagued them down the stretch.

“We didn’t execute great the last four minutes of the game,” said Jones.

Capitalizing on the Zephs scoring drought, ESN went on a 9-0 run, taking the lead when Wiggins, who finished with a game-high 19 points, was Johnny-on-the-spot.

It was Wiggins’ length that allowed him to reach above the scrum under the basket and put in the game-winning bucket. At 6-foot-7, the ESN senior is taller than anyone Whitehall has in the interior. Having to match up against taller players is something that Whitehall has dealt with all year as their frontcourt is small in comparison to their Eastern Pennsylvania Conference counterparts. Jones said that it’s a credit to Logan McGinley, Zach Gilbert and Devin Martinez to have “battled as well as they have all year.”

Their hustle and aggressive play helped them mitigate much of that height disadvantage, but players like Parkland’s Sam Iorio, Emmaus’ Zach Sabol and ESN’s Wiggins, can often dictate a game with their size in the paint.

After a successful summer and a bright beginning to the season, the last part of the year is not what this senior-laden team envisioned, said Jones.

“We anticipated in being in this a little longer,” said Jones.

With the new district rollout this season placing them in 5A against similar-sized schools, Jones said that the teams who eventually qualified for the D-11 playoffs are the ones he earmarked at the start of the season. He felt they had as good a chance as any of those schools for a district crown.

But they ran into a hot team who previously trekked to the Lehigh Valley and upset top-ranked Emmaus in the EPC playoffs.

That left Whitehall, who finished the season at 16-8, still believing they had unfinished business.

“It was a good year, but these guys wanted more,” said Jones. “We all wanted more.”

Jones said that it was a back-and-forth affair through much of the game. They were able to get some transition points early and raced out to a four-point advantage at the end of the first period.

The Timberwolves closed the gap in the second period and took a three-point lead at the break.

Whitehall was hurt by dribble penetration with Azemi the main culprit as he scored 16 points in the win. The T-Wolves also got a good floor game from Darin Belinger who had 15 points.

The Zephyrs were led by McGinley who had 11. Kayden Walschburger, who scored the final basket for the Zephs, finished with nine, while Esquilin knocked down eight.

Additionally, Jackson Buskirk and Zach Gilbert each finished with seven, while Martinez and Kasai Harrison each chipped in with four.

The loss marks the end of the standout careers of Whitehall’s senior class. McGinley, Martinez, Buskirk, Gilbert, and Charles Hudson, who was not present at the D-11 game, all made an impact playing varsity basketball for the maroon and gold. They were instrumental in helping the team get into the postseason the last two seasons.

Additionally, Walschburger, Harrison, and Eric Johnson were valuable contributors as well, especially this season as their roles increased.

That class’ two-year record as starters was 29-19.

Jones said that each player brought something different to the table and that’s going to be difficult to replace.

With only Esquilin back from that starting crew, Jones knows there’s going to be lots of holes to fill. Still, he’s excited about the road ahead.