Westwood’s Blake Hewitt, right, shoots over the defense of West Iron County’s Seth Miatech during a Class C district tournament game Wednesday in Iron River. (Iron Mountain Daily News photo by Adam Niemi)

IRON RIVER — Westwood stormed back in the fourth quarter to beat West Iron County 50-45 in a Class C district tournament semifinal boys basketball game on Wednesday night at the Wykons’ gym.

Westwood (8-13) plays Iron Mountain for the district title at 7 p.m. EST Friday back at West Iron County High School. The Mountaineers stole a late lead and beat Norway 53-49 in the other district semifinal.

West Iron (11-8) led 43-33 with five minutes left in the game before the Patriots surged. Westwood outscored West Iron 21-5 in the fourth quarter, which included 13 straight points to end the game, erasing a Wykons lead of 45-37 at the start of the string.

The Patriots didn’t change strategies in the fourth quarter, they just ran more effectively, according to coach Chad Hewitt.

“I don’t necessarily think anything changed. We didn’t run anything different,” Hewitt said. “We became a little bit more efficient with the basketball, and a little bit more aggressive instead of playing on our heels like we did in the first three quarters.

“We had some spurts and saw some really good things. We were able to move the ball, I like to say, north and south toward the basket instead of going east to west, sideline to sideline.”

West Iron coach Dan Schive said the loss was painful, especially after holding the lead for most of the game.

“Really hard way to lose. Everybody knew we wanted to get to the district final. I just kept telling them ‘Get to Friday, get to Friday,'” Schive said. “Kind of thought we were on our way…. Most of these kids are Fellowship of Christian Athletes. They’re very spiritual kids, so basically the big guy upstairs had a different plan for them.”

As elated as Westwood players and fans were after the game, WIC players took the loss hard. Some walked off the court dazed and in tears. Wykons coach Dan Schive asked for a moment to himself between media interviews. He had grown close to his seniors.

“It’s hard to lose your seniors every year and especially this class for me, because this is my youngest daughter’s graduating class, so I’ve known these kids for 17, 18, 19 years,” Schive said. “This is will be a tough one when I get home. Trying to keep it together now, but …”

Schive said he screamed for a timeout with about 50 seconds left in the game and the Wykons holding onto a narrow 45-44 lead. As the gym rattled anxiously with cheering and screaming, his call for a timeout went unnoticed. Westwood forced a loose ball, gained possession and scored off the turnover for a one-point lead with 28.8 seconds left.

“I’m screaming for a timeout — and I can yell pretty loud and I know it gets loud in a gym — I’m screaming at the referees to get a timeout while we still had the ball and a lead. And I don’t get a timeout and all of a sudden we’re down one,” Schive said. “If I get a timeout, we get a chance to set up. We can run down and we can set something up.

“Do you blame it on anybody? No, you don’t blame it on anybody, but I can’t scream any louder for a timeout. That’s just — that was a tough one. Of course we made mistakes after that. Just a brutal way to lose.”

Austin Pierpont finished with a game-high 17 points for Westwood. Blake Hewitt chipped in 13 points before fouling out in the fourth quarter.

Caden Pellizzer scored 15 for West Iron. He also fouled out about halfway through the fourth quarter. Steven Nelson added 13 points.

“I didn’t think we played poorly until the last three minutes. We’d make a run, get in foul trouble, make a run and they’d come back because my bigs were out,” Schive said. “Then we’d run up a lead. That’s kind of been the problem sometimes this year is we just can’t seem to get over that last little hump of putting a team away. Losing Caden with the last two kind of silly fouls hurt.”