By Terry Mosher

Sun Sports Writer

John Coker, Olympic’s 6-foot-9 junior center and its top scorer, was at home with the flu when the Trojans took the floor last night at Bremerton.

If this had been a college game, Las Vegas bookies might have taken the game off the boarad because of Coker’s absence. But the Trojans didn’t miss a beat without Coker. In fact, the Trojans picked up the beat and went on to throttle the much smaller Knights 73-52 in an Olympic League boys basketball opener on the Knights’ new floor.

“With the lineup we had tonight, maybe it was a blessing – well, it’s never a blessing when you lose a 6-9 kid – but I think we matched up probably a little better with our size,” said Olympic coach Al Gleich. “We didn’t have to play the half-court game, which might have made a difference in the game.”

Bremerton coach Larry Gallagher said, “I told the kids before the game that (not having Coker) might be to their advantage. They are going to able to run a little more with us, and they did.”

Without Coker, the Trojans took to running a surprisingly quick transition game to blow by the quick Knights. After sputtering in the first quarter (Bremerton led 12-11), the Trojans turned on their jets and score 25 second-quarter points to take a 36-21 halftime lead.

The Knights were to make just one last run before succumbing. They pulled to 45-35 with two minutes left in the third period, prompting Gleich to call time. Gleich chewed on his players for dialing long distance instead of taking the ball inside.

“We’re ahead,” he shouted, his face beet red. “We’re in control of the game. We don’t need to be taking three-pointers. Take it inside.”

OK, coach, gotcha ya.

So just seconds later,, Brian Mayer fires up a 25-footer that goes swish to make it 48-35.

Sorry, coach.

“Yeah, I wanted to jerk him,” Gleich said, a smile slowly spreading on his face. “It’s one of those shots where you say, “Nooooooooo … okay.’”

Great coaching, though.

Mayer’s deaf-ear attack started a 21-6 Olympic run that demolished the Knights. The Trojans just took amazing liberties with a Bremerton squad that played awfully well Friday night in pushing South Kitsap to two overtimes before losing. They controlled the boards, were quicker in transition and hounded the poor Knights to death on defense.

“Defense was the key,” Gleich believes. “I said that before the game. We played a good defensive game against Fife, and I think defense was the difference tonight.

“We were able,” Gleich said, “to match up with them, take away their strengths (the 3-point shot) and they weren’t able to get the ball inside on us. They did later in the game with (DeForest) Phelps coming in there. He’s a good-looking sophomore.”

The easy conquest, though, surprised Gleich. “I was real worried about them. They had played a great game against South and I was concerned about their quickness. But the kids did a great job.”

The big thing was that the Trojans were able to stop guard Casey Lindberg, who burned South Kitsap for 21 points. Lindberg scored nine, but they were a quiet nine. He was not a major factor at any time of the game.

Bremerton tried to nail the three-pointers even though Olympic’s 1-3-1 zone put a lot of pressure on the perimeter. The Knights put up 20 of them and hit but five, two of them back-to-back early in the game by guard Todd Lewis.

The Knights shot only 28 percent for the game, which is a tribute to the tough defense the Trojans played. On the other hand, the Trojans hit 51 percent from the field, a tribute to a transition game led by Darren Prouse and Brian Carlsen. One or both would release early and beat the Knights’ defense for cripples time after time.

“We didn’t rotate very well on our fullcourt defense, and we got beat a number of times,” agreed Gallagher, who is still looking for the first win as Knights’ coach. “We usually have one man rotate back, but a lot of time he got hung up in the back of the pack and couldn’t get back.”

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Four of the five Olympic starters hit double figures before sitting ou the last four minutes and watching the subs finish the game. Mayer, who canned seven of his nine shots, fired in 16, Carlsen added 14, Prouse 12 and Matt Erickson 10, all of them in the second quarter when he and Mayer took over the game for several minutes.

Peter Gleich, the fifth starter, added nine points and pulled a game-high 12 rebounds.

Phelps, who has played impressively in several games now as a reserve coming off the bench, is slowly playing himself into a starter’s role for Bremerton. The 6-1 sophomore scored a team-high 11 points and pulled 10 rebounds, even though he didn’t enter the game until the second quarter.

“My two sophomores both did some really nice things,” said Gallagher, talking about Phelps and guard Mike Gurske, who scored six points. “DeForest especially. He got some nice rebounds. It’s nice to see somebody on our side get off the floor – that high anyway.”

Gallagher, whose team is 0-4, gave full credit to Olympic. “They did a nice job. They’ve got some big kids – large kids – that cover a lot of floor space, and they are pretty good basketball players.

“They took a lot of the floor away from us and kind of pinned us so we couldn’t offensively get into anything. They just shut us down.

“But we’re going to have nights like this,” Gallagher added. “It’s important for the kids to keep it in perspective. It’ll be interesting Friday because we go to Sequim. The kids are very competitive and have a lot of pride and going to Sequim is going to be a lot of fun. The kids will bounce back.”

Olympic, which has a game edge already over the two other AAA schools in league, will try to keep its edge Friday at North Kitsap.

“One of our goals was to win these two (December) league games and get the lead on the other triple-A schools,” Gleich said.

If recent history is any help, the Trojans are headed in the right direction. Olympic hasn’t lost at North Kitsap in several years.

“Maybe I better knock on wood,” Gleich said.

Olympic League

Olympic	11	25	16	21	-	73
Bremerton	12	9	16	15	-	52
Oly - Matt Erickson 10, Brian Carlson 14, Peter Gleich 9, Darren Prouse 12, Brian Mayer 16, Jeremy Cook 2, Kory Raidhead 5, Dan Conway 3, Steve Foley 2, Steve Bailey.   Brem - Jon Rustvold 2, Keith Krell, Chris Liebmann 7, Todd Lewis 9, Casey Lindberg 9, Brian Coombe 3, DeForest Phelps 11, Mike Gurske 6, John Chapman 2, Phil Sutton 1, David Rudd 2.   Shooting - FGs: Oly 51% (30-59), Brem 29% (16-56);. 3-point shots - Oly 1-2 (Reidhead), Brem 5-20 (Lewis 2); FTs: Oly 48% (10/21), Brem 65% (15-23); Rebounds - Oly 51 (Gleich 12), Brem 37 (Phelps 10); Turnovers - Oly 19, Brem 15; Fouls - Oly 15, Brem 18. Officials - Colin McInnes, Jim Rye.   JV - Bremerton 76, Olympic 53   Staff photo by Larry Steagall Larry Gallagher, Bremerton High basketball coach, watched his Knights go down to a fourth straight defeat last night at Olympic

Bremerton 56, Olympic 35 – The Knights scored the first 14 points of the game, and after that it was just a matter of playing out the script.

The Bremerton lead at halftime 31-12 and most of the final two periods were given over to bench players.

Missy Beard, 6-1 senior center, scored 21 points, hauled down 11 rebounds and blocked three shots. Beard and Stephanie Watson accounted for 13 first-quarter points, seven by Beard and six by Watson. Watson finished with eight, second high to Beard.

Amy Keller added six boards and she and Mikke Haugen combined for six steals for Bremerton, which shot a season-high 40 percent from the field.

Jill Corelli led Olympic with 14 points.

The Knights host Sequim in another league game Friday night. Olympic entertains North Kitsap tomorrow.

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Olympic League

Last night

Oly - Mindy Veatch 6, Lisa Marcatte 3, Judy Tell 6, Andrea Chidsey 2, Jill Corelli 14, Jackie smith 2, Kerry Garwood, Naomi Maxey, Gretchen Dnning, Michelle Carter 2, Stephanie Parker.

JV - Bremerton 43, Olympic 30