By Keeghan Gittins
For The New Era
The Sweet Home High School boys basketball team split its two games last week, earning a dramatic 43-41 win over North Marion High School before falling 66-53 to Newport High School on senior night.
Against North Marion, the Huskies secured the win on their final possession.
With 12 seconds remaining, Mason Tyler grabbed the rebound and pushed the ball up the floor before finding Bradyn McClure with seven seconds left. McClure beat his defender, rose over a double team just in front of the free-throw line and sank the game winner with just one second in regulation.
Despite shooting 5-19 from the field, McClure said he trusted himself with the final attempt.
“We needed a shot to win and I believed in all the hours of practice and the work I have put in,” McClure said.
Sweet Home struggled from three-point range, finishing just 2-14, and committed 18 turnovers. However, the Huskies stayed in the game because of their performance at the line, going 10/12 after failing to shoot above 60 percent from the stripe in their last five games.
Newport.
On Friday, Sweet Home celebrated Senior Night, but lost to No. 3 Newport, 66-53. Tyler led the Huskies with an efficient 17 points, making five of 11 inside the arc and 3-6 from three.
Senior Alex Bachand came up big with 12 points, shooting 57% on seven attempts. Six of his points came in the opening four minutes.
“It was fun to see Alex shoot the ball really well with it being Senior Night,” said Coach Drew Emmert.
“(Trenton) Templin also played well, defending at a high level, grabbing some boards and a score or two.”
McClure was assigned to defend Newport’s Ayden Bokuro, an all-league player averaging 19 points per game. Bokuro proved difficult to slow, going 8-12 inside the arc and adding two three-pointers.
After the game, Emmert credited Newport’s guard play and pointed to turnovers as a key factor.
“Newport is a really good team with three of the best guards in 4A,” he said. “We didn’t do a good job defensively of handling those three. They were too comfortable all game.
“ We tried to play off their posts and pack the paint so their guards couldn’t get to the hoop – which we did OK at in the half court. We just had too many TO’s, which led to easy transition buckets.
“With that we continued to battle. We played hard and shot the ball well, which kept us in it.”
After the mixed week the Huskies fall to 4-5, still tied for third in league with No. 17 Stayton. With an unlikely route to the playoffs, as Stayton will be playing league bottom-dweller North Marion, Sweet Home will most likely play its last game against No. 19 Cascade on Feb. 24.
This will be the Huskies’ last game in the Oregon West Conference and their last in the 4A division for the foreseeable future, as they will play next year in the 3A-division Mountain Valley Conference.
