Sweet Home 59
Molalla 44
Sweet Home 65
North Marion 52
The boys basketball team defeated Molalla 59-44 Friday night and North Marion 65-52 to stay in a scrap with Stayton for first place.
That dogfight will probably be settled this week. The Huskies were scheduled to face Stayton at home on Tuesday night after press time. The Huskies will then host second-place Sisters Friday night.
“Luckily they’re both home,” Coach Tim Little said. “We’re still undefeated at home, which is nice.”
The Huskies trailed the North Marion Huskies 13-11 after the first quarter, but the Huskies built a 30-19 lead by halftime. North Marion outscored the Huskies 15-4 in the fourth quarter to tie the game at 34-34.
“Here’s the biggest story with North Marion,” Coach Little said. “We scored 31 in the fourth.”
That made the difference, Coach Little said. A big part of that was at the foul line.
Husky scoring was balanced across the team, with three in double figures and the next three at nine, eight and seven.
“The same thing happened at Molalla too,” Coach Little said. “They tried to just focus on Garrett (Kauffman, who led scoring against North Marion). Cody (Shipp, who led scoring at Mollala) really stepped up in both games and played well for us.”
Kauffman scored 14 against North Marion; Ravi Patel, 12; Andy Worley, 11; Shipp, nine; Alex Ritzman, eight; Aaron Forquer, seven; Matt Morneault, two; and Tim Faulconer, two. Adam Brickly led North Marion scoring with 17 points.
Against the Molalla Indians, the Huskies held a lead all game starting at 10-8 in the first quarter, 31-25 at halftime and 44-38 at the end of the third.
“Our main goal with that game was just to get a road win,” Coach Little said. “We didn’t play our best game, but we minimized a lot of mistakes we’d been making.”
On the road, the Huskies are running about .500.
Shipp scored 15 for the Huskies; Worley, 12; Kauffman, 10; Ritzman, eight; Morneault, five; Forquer, four; Charlie Fitzsimons, two; Ryan Elliott, two; and Patel, one. Jess Smith led Indian scoring with 13 points; Joshua Hagg, 12; and Clayton Herman, 10.
Stayton was the big game on Husky minds Monday. Beyond that game are Sisters Friday and Cascade on Tuesday.
To play with Stayton, Coach Little said, his team would need to “compete all 32 minutes. When we played at Stayton, we made some key mistakes. We didn’t make a lot of them, but the three or four we had were key.”
The Huskies lost by only six points.
Coach Little is optimistic about the week.
“The kids really respond to big games,” Coach Little said. They know pre-season goals are at stake on that game.
“Sisters is playing really well,” Coach Little said. “It’s just like I tell the kids. It’s now how you start. it’s how you finish.”
Sisters has won perhaps five games this year, three of them in league, enough to place it second behind Stayton and Sweet Home.
The Outlaws play up tempo basketball, leading the league in total points scored but also giving up the most points.
“They want to get the ball up and down the court,” Coach Little said. “So if we’re not shooting the ball, it’ll hurt us.”
Coach Little doesn’t think he’ll want his team to slow things down though, he said. The Huskies will probably just play with them. If it works, they may just stick with that strategy.
“We have no problem running up and down the floor,” Coach Little said. That’s part of his team’s success this year. It is able to adapt and play different ways.
“By the end of this week, for sure, league playoffs are fully into place,” Coach Little said. “If we take care of business this week, we’ll have a very good shot of bringing home the conference title.”