Sweet Home boys basketball lost to Madras 55-36 at home last week and to Crook County 64-32 on the road, wrapping up the non-league portion of the season with a 1-12 record.
Against Madras (7-6) on Jan. 10, Sweet Home was down 29-12 at halftime and was unable to recover from the deficit. The Huskies shot 34.1% from the field while holding the White Buffalo to 36.1% shooting.
Sweet Home turned the ball over 23 times while forcing 18.
“Madras is a good team,” said Sweet Home Head Coach Drew Emmert.
“We started off OK against them, but they played really physical and fast and we didn’t handle it very well.
“We didn’t get back on defense very well and they transitioned on us really well. We didn’t shoot the ball particularly well either, so that game kind of got away from us.”
Junior Nathan Aker led the Huskies in scoring with nine points on 4-14 shooting. Senior Riley Korn had seven points on 3-4 shooting, while senior Dylan Luttmer added five for the Huskies on 2-5 shooting.
Against Crook County (6-7, No. 10) on Jan. 13, Sweet Home was down 29-17 at halftime before the second half got away from the Huskies even more.
“Crook County is a really good team, and that’s obviously a long road trip for us,” Emmert said. “We knew that we were going to have to play really well to give ourselves a chance.
“I thought we played hard, but we didn’t make shots and we let their runs become too big. We had a couple good moments, but then the third quarter just got away from us.
“When you’re playing a good team like that on the road, you don’t have a lot of room for error, especially with a team that’s as talented as them.”
Crook County shot an impressive 55.3% from the field, while Sweet Home shot at just 28.2%. The hot-shooting Cowboys knocked in 11 of 22 shots from three-point territory and dominated the boards, grabbing 33 rebounds to Sweet Home’s 16.
Junior Vegas Mauer led the Huskies in scoring with nine points on 3-5 shooting. Aker chipped in for six on 2-12 shooting, while juniors Colin Nicholson and Taiden Burger each had five.
The Huskies face a tough start to Oregon West Conference action this week as they take on Cascade on the road at 7 p.m. on Friday, Jan. 20. The Cougars are 9-2 and ranked third in the state in 4A.
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