Cody Cannon
For The New Era
The Sweet Home boys basketball team faced off against Taft this past Wednesday and came up short, losing by 12 points.
“This was probably our worst game of the season,” Coach Tim Porter said. “We didn’t do much right in this game, to be honest. We didn’t defend well, we didn’t run our offense well, we didn’t rebound well. We had a couple kids who had decent games, but by far this has to be our worst game yet.”
Throughout the first half, the Huskies seemed to be able to hold their own. They were never too far behind, but never really could inch their way to the front. They were determined to win, but couldn’t seem to find the points to match their determination.
“I’m really big on preparation for the game,” Porter said, “I believe that you have to prepare for the game at least the day before. I don’t think we did a very good job preparing mentally for the game, and it showed.”
Once the second half went under way the Huskies began to show that. Even though they could find a way to get the ball in the air, Sweet Home never could figure out the concept of re-bounding the ball. Turn-overs were also a big flaw in the game.
“We know, because of our size, that rebounding is definitely one thing we’re going to have to work on,” Porter added. “You have turn-overs when the team isn’t focused as well as it should be,” which, he said, goes back to the team not being prepared.
On the bright side,“I thought that Austin Dixon stepped up and played a pretty good game and, at times, everyone did good things.”
Bryce Daniels and Grant Kauffman tied for the points leaders with 15 points. Christian Porter scored two points, Ryan Adams had three, Hunter Jutte had 11, Austin Dixon had five, and Jason Sarter had three.
Porter said he hopes that the team can work harder and prepare more so that the team won’t end up duplicating the same mistakes.
Molalla 79, Sweet Home 61
The Huskies fell 79-61 at Molalla Friday.
The final score was a lot closer than it looked, Porter said. The Huskies were within eight with about 2:30 left on the clock.
“We had a great look at a three, but it rattled in and out,” Porter said. That would have cut the lead to five and made it anybody’s game. Molalla ran down the clock and scored the next bucket and took a 10-point lead. With less than two minutes left, the Huskies had to start fouling to get possession, driving up the final margin.
The Huskies had already battled back from a 20-point deficit. They trailed 29-9 after the first quarter.
“I’ll tell you, they are a good team,” Porter said. “Probably the best we’ve seen this year.”
Molalla came out and “were amazing,” he said. They blocked 10 shots, five or six by a 6’7” post, Bradley Hagaman. Those blocked shots turned into fast break points at the other end of the court.
“We didn’t play badly,” Porter said, Molalla was just getting blocks and working with them.
“We started sending three back instead of offensive rebounding,” Porter said. He kept just two on offense after the shot. “Once their fast break points started to diminish, we started to come back.”
The Huskies outscored Molalla 44-31 in the second and third quarters to get within seven points by the end of the third quarter, Porter said. “To their credit, that is something a lot of teams would not come back from.”
Grant Kauffman started hitting some threes to get things going for the Huskies offense, Porter said, while Christian Porter broke down his man in the middle and started hitting shots or dishing it off for points.
Jason Sarter at 5’11” played great defense against Hagaman and did a good job getting in front of him and blocking lob passes to the middle, Porter said.
Hunter Jutte had a great game, Porter said. The whole team did.