Bremerton easily advances to

District semi-finals

George Edgar

(Sports Writer)

For the third time this season, the Bremerton Knights played the Port Angeles Roughriders, this time in the quarterfinals of the Class 2A West Central District playoffs. And like the first two times, the Knights came out ahead.

This time, waaaaay ahead.

The Knights blew out the ‘Riders 82-30 at Eathorne Gym to advance to the semifinals Friday night at Foss High School in Tacoma. They will play another Olympic League team, Bainbridge, for the third time this season as well, at 7 p.m.

The game started out with the Roughriders planning to contain leading scorer Jalen Davis by coming out in a diamond-and-one defense. That left freshman guard Jaydon Turner alone on the opening possessions and he responded by hitting two three-pointers and assisted on a two-point basket.

“It just comes naturally to me, shooting and working on my shot,” Turner said.

“It was all about adjustments,” said Bremerton coach Miah Davis. “It’s the coaches’ job to prepare our team for whatever happens. We know some teams will try to box and one, or diamond and one Jalen, so we’re prepared for anything and everything teams will throw at us. Our job is to execute; it’s not going to be our level of play or effort, it’s going to be how we execute.”

Turner added another three-pointer, as the Knights just exploded out of the gate against PA. Before the ‘Riders knew what had happened, they were down 28-3 at the end of the first quarter, and the rout was on.

Bremerton led 43-19 at halftime, then blasted PA 25-5 in the third quarter, triggering the mercy clock late in the period for the rest of the game.

Turner and Junior Davis-McWhorter led Bremerton with 15 points each, while Jalen Davis had 13 points and 12 rebounds. Frank Allen added 11 points, and Aaron Matthews had eight points and nine assists. The Knights (16-5) shot 51 percent (32 of 62) from the field against PA (10-13)

“All we did was watch film, study them and we came out with the win,” Turner added.

Three of the teams in the semifinals on Friday will be from the Olympic League, as league co-champ Sequim will play Franklin Pierce, the lone South Puget Sound League 2A team left in the winners bracket. Two more league teams, Olympic and Port Angeles, remain alive in the consolation bracket. It shows that the league is very strong this season and could be even stronger over the next couple of seasons, and the seeding committee for the district playoffs were right in putting Olympic League teams in the high seeds.

“On our meeting, we discussed that,” said coach Davis. “Our record was 8-1 against that group. Three out of the four, as a committee we did well, coming up with the proper lineups, and come Friday, we can come out with the results.”

Port Angeles Roughriders- 3 16 5 6 - 30
Bremerton Knights - 28 15 25 14 - 82

J. Turner - 15 pts 2 ast 2 stl 1 blk 1 to

J. McWhorter - 14 pts 3 reb 1 to

J. Davis - 13 pts 12 reb 2 ast 5 stl 1 to

F. Allen - 11 pts 4 reb 1 ast 1 to

J. Beahan - 8 pts 7 reb
A. Matthews - 8 pts 9 ast 5 stl 1 to

E. Taylor - 6 pts 3 reb 2 ast 2 stl 1 to

D. Anderson - 5 pts 5 reb 5 ast 2 stl

George Edgar

(Sports Writer)

edgar7892@yahoo.com