Knights show depth in back-to-back

Summer League wins

By MARK BUTCHER

Sports Writer

BREMERTON, Wash. – It was fun to watch the Bremerton High Boys Varsity basketball team play Tuesday (Jun. 12^th) night in the Sports Beyond Summer League. Not for the fact that they withstood the Sequim Wolves pesky three-point shooting to earn a 46-to-44 victory in the first game or outmuscled the Crosspoint Warriors for an easy 60-to-46 win in the subsequent game. But because they showed depth at all positions on the floor and had fun playing together.

The back-to-back wins against Sequim, 3-2 prior to the game, and Crosspoint, 2-0 at tip-off, moves the Knights up to fourth place in the Summer League standing going into next weeks single elimination championship tournament.

The addition of returning varsity forwards McCoy Retome and Kaleb Peterson, small slashing forward Keone Laquana, who sat out the 2017-18 season due to grades, and incoming freshman scorer D’Angelo Moore proved to be the difference. Now Head Coach Miah Davis had replaceable size down low and interchangeable option at the point and on the wings.

Last week, in the previous four games, Asst. Coach Joe Wilson, who coached the first two games Tuesday (Jun. 5^th), and Coach Davis, who called the shots in the second set on Thursday (Jun. 7^th), had only five guards and two forwards, Gavin King and Andy McMartin, to work with. Limited options.

Following the back-to-back losses Thursday (Jun. 7^th) and the addition of the new players, it took the BHS Varsity Boys the entire first-half against Sequim to find themselves.

Game momentum swung in Bremerton’s favor at the intermission buzzer when Laquana was fouled slashing to the basket. The field goal and the successful free throw gave the Knights a 21-to-20 halftime lead. Thirteen of BHS Boys 21 points came from their big men, who converted 10-of-16 (63%) field goals. While outside the three-point arc the guards were bouncing the ball off one side of the rim or the other on 0-for-6 shooting.

Behind the frigid three-point shooting the Knights could easily have found themselves once again in their usual deficit hole. This time it was different, because less than a third (25%) of their field goals came from long-range.

Into the second half Bremerton continued their balanced offensive attack, which added an additional six assists to the six they distributed in the first-half. They also got aggressive on the offensive boards, reeling in forty-two percent of their missed shots for second attempts. Without the recycled shots the Knights could very easily have lost the contest due to the Sequim’s unrelenting three balls.

Against Crosspoint, in the 7 p.m. game, the BHS Varsity Boys faced a different challenge, that of incoming senior Alex Weirth. Standing 6-4 with broad shoulder, Weirth’s interior game ignites memories of the glory days of his head coach, East High alumni Rick Walker. Possessing no single player with the ability to stop Weirth the Knights utilized a double-down defensive strategy to slow him down and countered with an up-tempo fast-break attack.

But not the usual Knights single ballhandler dribbling down the center of the court against three or more defenders fast-break that has become common in recent years. Instead, the Bremerton wings got out quickly, the defensive rebounder pulled in the ball and threw a long two-handed over-the-top pass to his streaking teammate who finished the break for a score. This team approach produced 31 second-half points for the Knights, on 13-of-27 (48%) shooting and eight assists.

At the final buzzer guards Washington and Ruppe Wilson led the team with 14 points each, having together drained five three-pointers in the second twenty minutes to put the game away. Throughout the contest they replaced each other at point and on the wing as a shooter. In the paint the stable of Bremerton big-men battled for rebounding honors, with Laquana squeaking to the top with eight boards, followed by King with seven snags, and McMartin and Peterson grabbing six each.